[V. 2. THE PIGNUT HICKORY. 197 
attains a considerable size only when growing on a rich soil. 
In this State, it flourishes in company with the shellbark, and 
prevails in the eastern parts, particularly in the vicinity of 
Boston, and more on the southern side than on the northern or 
eastern. 
Sp. 3. Tse Pienur Hickory. Carya poreina. F. A. Michaux. 
Figured in Michaux, Sylva, Plate 38; and on Plate 14 of this volume. 
Although the pignut hickory occurs more frequently than 
any other species, yet the name is often made to include the 
mockernut and the bitternut. 
The bark of the pignut hickory is broken into finer and more 
numerous rugosities than either of the preceding species, and 
begins to assume its roughness at an earlier age, and on smaller 
trunks and branches. Its color is a rather light bluish, ashen 
gray, and it is often clouded with large patches of gray and 
sulphur-colored, or bluish lichens. On old trunks, the bark is 
comparatively smooth, but sometimes broken into larger and 
less regular plates than the mockernut, and the plates are rough 
and often projecting, somewhat as on the shellbark. 
The recent shoots are smaller than those of the two preceding 
species, tapering, smooth, often polished, purple, with numerous 
long dots, and gradually tumming brownish gray; the larger 
branches are of a uniform bluish gray. ‘The leaves are long, 
with three, five, or seven leaflets, on a long, smooth footstalk. 
The leaflets are nearly sessile, narrower than in the former 
species, smooth on both surfaces, tapering gradually at both 
extremities, and ending in a long point. 'The terminal leaflet is 
inversely egg-shaped, on a short stalk. When crushed, the 
leaves, as well as the husk of the nuts, give a not unpleasant 
odor, entirely different from the characteristic odor of the 
mockernut hickory. In autumn, as early as October, the leaves 
change their color, becoming of a russet orange, or often a rich 
orange with a brown tint overspread. 
The buds are egg-shaped and pointed, or rounded, smaller 
than in the last species, the outer scales of a polished brown. 
The fruit of the pignut hickory varies still more in shape 
