IV. 1. THE BLACK WALNUT. 185 
the branches. I have found trees of nearly similar dimensions 
in many parts of the State, and much larger ones on the Con- 
necticut River. 
Sp. 2. Tue Brack Watnur. J. nigra. L. 
Figured in Catesby, Plate 67; in Michaux, Sylva, I, Plate 30; and in Audu- 
bon’s Birds of America, II, Plate 156. 
A fine tree with spreading branches and a broad round head. 
The bark is rough and furrowed, and darker than that of the 
butternut tree. 
The leaves have from six to ten pairs of leaflets and an odd 
one. ‘They differ from those of the buttemut by bemg smooth 
above, while those of the butternut are rough; in having the 
leaf-stalk smooth, the leaves more smooth on both surfaces, more 
strongly serrated, less sessile, and a little more pointed, with the 
leaf-stalk less swollen, and the buds smaller. The fruit is 
round, and ona short footstalk ; that of the butternut, long, ovaie, 
and on a long footstalk. 
It is found in Massachusetts, but comes to its greatest perfec- 
tion, and displaysits fullest proportions in the States on the Ohio. 
On the banks and islands of that mver, Michaux says he has 
often seen trees three or four feet in diameter, and sixty or 
seventy feet in height, and that it is not rare to find them of 
the thickness of six or seven feet. ‘ When it stands insulated, 
its branches, extending themselves horizontally to a great dis- 
tance, spread into a spacious head, which gives it a very majes- 
tic appearance.” As itis found growing with us, it is remark- 
able rather for beauty than for majesty; yet if the flourishing 
young trees which are now to be seen are allowed to increase 
for a century, they will probably merit the encomium bestowed 
by Michaux. 
The sterile flowers are loosely set on green, simple catkins, 
from four to seven inches long, dependent from the axil of the 
last year’s leaves. Stamens very numerous, twenty to thirty or 
more, green, short, sessile, close set within a nearly circular pe- 
rianth of six rounded lobes. The fertile flowers are sessile on 
a terminal common footstalk, an inch or more long. Each cup 
25 
