WALNUT FAMILY 
Terminal leaflet larger than the others, often decurrent on slender 
stalk. Other leaflets are oblong to obovate-lanceolate, rounded 
equally or unequally at base, sharply serrate with incurved teeth, 
acute or acuminate. Leaflet vernation involute. Upper leaflets 
six to eight inches long, two to two and one-half broad, the lowest 
pair much smaller. They come out of the bud bright bronze green, 
hairy ; when full grown are thick, firm, smooth, dark yellow green 
above, paler beneath. In autumn they turn clear or rusty yellow. 
Petioles slender, usually smooth, grooved slightly, enlarged at 
base. 
Flowers.—May, June, when leaves are half grown. Moncecious. 
Staminate flowers borne in slender catkins, three to seven inches 
long, usually three catkins on one stout peduncle. The flowers are 
on short pedicels, yellow green, tomentose ; bract lanceolate, acute, 
hairy; calyx-lobes rounded, ovate ; stamens four, anthers nearly 
sessile, dark yellow. — Pistillate flowers in a two to  five-flowered 
spike; bract is lanceolate, acute ; bractlets and calyx dark green, 
hairy; stigmas yellow, and wither before the anthers shed their 
pollen. 
Fruit.—Variable, fig-form, ellipsoidal, subglobose, rounded or 
depressed at apex, abruptly or gradually narrowed at the base, often 
obscurely winged to the middle or entirely to the base. In some 
forms the four valves open and discharge the nut, in others they 
partly open and retain it. Nut is oblong, oval, or subglobose, with 
smooth hard shell, thick or thin. Kernel small, sweet or slightly 
bitter. 
Distinguishing Characters.—Bud scales imbricate ; staminate 
catkins borne on branches of the year. Leaflets five, seven or nine, 
oblong or obovate-lanceolate. Fruit pyriform or globose; husk 
thin, slightly ridged at the sutures, not splitting freely to the base ; 
nut varying in form, thick-shelled, kernel sweet ; bark closely fur- 
rowed, rarely hanging in loose plates. 
fficoria glabra is a beautiful tree and certainly worthy of a 
pleasanter name than that of Pignut. But the early settlers 
of this country judged trees by the standard of use rather 
than beauty ; and as the fruit of this tree did not compare fa- 
vorably with that of the Shellbark, both tree and fruit were 
given over to the pigs without question. However, another 
explanation of the name is given. The typical shape of the 
fruit is pyriform, it looks not unlike a small fig and it has 
been suggested that pignut 1s a corruption of fignut, But 
there seem to be no facts upon which to base this theory as 
there is no record that the tree was ever called fignut, and 
the earliest records mention it as pignut. 
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