196 WOODY PLANTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 
pointed scales, imbricately arranged, and differ from those of 
the other species in being somewhat more hairy. The fertile 
flowers are very small, and consist of a calyx with four seg- 
ments, from which issue two hairy, irregular, ragged stigmas. 
The fruit of the mockernut varies remarkably in size, shape 
and appearance, but is commonly from four to six inches 1n cir- 
cumference. It is sometimes nearly orbicular and smooth, with 
slightly depressed furrows, but more frequently pear-shaped, 
with prominent seams and a granulated surface. The husk 
separates nearly to the base into four unequal lobes, sometimes 
as thick as those of the shellbark, and sometimes quite thin» 
but always becoming very hard. It has, in a remarkable de- 
gree, the strong resinous scent characteristic of the specics. 
The nuts are whitish, commonly somewhat pear-shaped, and 
less compressed and with less prominent angles than those of 
the shellbark. But a variety is found with prominent angles, 
and is distinguished by the name of the square nut. The shell 
is very thick and hard, and difficult to crack. The kernel is 
sweet, and, in some varieties, as large as in the shellbark, but 
the difficulty of extracting it, makes it far less valuable. The 
fruit ripens in October. 
The wood is characterized by the hardness, tenacity and 
weight which belong to all the trees of this genus. It is less 
easily cleft than that of the shellbark, but next to it in value as 
fuel, and less tenacious than that of the pignut, and therefore 
less valued for its uses in the arts. But the differences in these 
respects are so slight, that only the most careful observers have 
noticed them. When young, it is supposed to be whiter than 
that of the other hickories, and thence the tree receives the 
common name of white heart hickory. The Indians made of 
the bark of one of the hickories, probably this, with the assist- 
ance of a vegetable acid, the only kind of acid they had, a 
black dye, said to have been deep and permanent. 
Michaux, who had made experiments upon the several spe- 
cles, pronounces the mockernut to be the slowest in its growth 
of all; and he thinks it is the most lable to the attacks of 
worms, and therefore one of the least valuable for cultivation. 
He says it grows on poorer soils than the other species, but 
