Chap. X WALNUT. 379 



Walnut (Juglans regia). — This tree and the common nut belong 

 to a widely different order from the foregoing fruits, and are there- 

 fore here noticed. The walnut grows wild on the Caucasus and in 

 the Himalaya, where Dr. Hooker 129 found the fruit of full size, but 

 ''as hard as a hickory-nut." It has been found fossil, as M. de 

 Saporta informs me, in the tertiary formation, of France. 



In England the walnut presents considerable differences, in the 

 shape and size of the fruit, in the thickness of the husk, and in the 

 thinness of the shell ; this latter quality has given rise to a variety 

 called the thin-shelled, which is valuable, but suffers from the 

 attacks of tit-mice. 130 The degree to which the kernel tills the 

 shell varies much. In France there is a variety called the Grape 

 or cluster-walnut, in which the nuts grow in <c bunches of ten, 

 fifteen, or even twenty together/' There is another variety which 

 bears on the same tree differently shaped leaves, like the hetero- 

 phyllous hornbeam; this tree is also remarkable from having 

 pendulous branches, and bearing elongated, large, thin-shelled 

 nuts. 131 M. Cardan has minutely described 132 some singular physi- 

 ological peculiarities in the June-leafing variety, which produces 

 its leaves and flowers four or five weeks later than the common 

 varieties ; and although in August it is apparently in exactly the 

 same state of forwardness as the other kinds, it retains its leaves and 

 fruit much later in the autumn. These constitutional peculiarities 

 are strictly inherited. Lastly, walnut-trees, which are properly 

 monoicous, sometimes entirely fail to produce male flowers. 133 



Nats (Corylus avellana). — Most botanists rank all the varieties 

 under the same species, the common wild nut. 134 The husk, or 

 involucre, differs greatly, being extremely short in Barr's Spanish, 

 and extremely long in filberts, in which it is contracted so as to 

 prevent the nut falling out. This kind of husk also protects the 

 nut from birds, for titmice (Parus) have been observed 135 to pass 

 over filberts, and attack cobs and common nuts growing in the 

 same orchard. In the purple-filbert the husk is purple, and in the 

 frizzled-filbert it is curiously laciniated; in the red-filbert the 

 pellicle of the kernel is red. The shell is thick in some varieties, 

 but is thin in Cosford's-nut, and in one variety is of a bluish colour. 

 The nut itself differs much in size and shape, being ovate and 

 compressed in filberts, nearly round and of great size in cobs and 



129 



Himalayan Journals,' 1854, 1849, p. 101. 



vol. ii. p. 334. Moorcroft (' Travels,' 133 ' Gardener's Chronicle,' 1847, 



vol. ii. p. 146) describes four varieties pp. 541 and 558. 



cultivated in Kashmir. 134 The following details are taken 



130 'Gardener's Chronicle,' 1850, from the 'Catalogue of Fruits, 1842, 

 p. 723. in Garden of Hort. Soc.,' p. 103 ; and 



131 Paper translated in Loudon's from Loudon's ' Encyclop. of Garden- 

 ' Gardener's ilag.,' 1829, vol. v. p. ing,' p. 943. 

 202. i3s~< Gardener's Chron.,' 1860, p 



132 



Quoted in ' Gardener's Chron.,' 956. 



