CHAPTER VII. 



HICKORY NUTS. 



Hicoria, Rafinesque. Name probably derived from 

 the abo]'iginal or Indian word hickery, or hickory, the 

 common name for these nuts among the tribes formerly 

 inhabiting the Middle and Southern Atlantic States. 



Order, JuglandacecB (Walnut family). — Native de- 

 ciduous trees of large size, with compound serrate leaves 

 with an odd number of leaflets, varying from five to fif- 

 teen in the different species, the three terminal ones 

 usually much the largest, the lower ones on opposite 

 sides of the rather stout leafstalk. Male catkins slen- 

 der, cylindrical, pendulous, two to six inches long, three 

 in a cluster, on a naked peduncle or stalk (Fig. 46) 

 springing from the base of the terminal buds of the pre- 

 vious season's twigs, and Just below the first set of new 

 leaves in spring ; calyx unequally three-parted ; stamens 

 three to eight. Female flowers two or more in a cluster, 

 from the end of the new growth of the season, which 

 becomes the common peduncle or fruit-stalk of a single 

 nut or cluster of nuts. The flowers are destitute of 

 petals ; stigma short, broad, and four-lobed ; husk fleshy 

 or leathery, smooth, very thick in some species and 

 thin in others, partly or wholly four-lobed, opening in 

 some, allowing the nut to drop out at maturity, in others 

 adhering, falling off entire when ripe. Nuts with hard, 

 bone-like shell, round or oblong, smooth or deeply four 

 to six angled, somewhat flattened or compressed in most 

 of the species ; kernel two-lobed, oily, sweet and deli- 

 cious, as in the common shellbark hickory, or extremely 

 bitter, as in the bitter nut. 



147 



