198 WOODY PLANTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 
than that of the other hickories, and hardly less in size. It is 
sessile on a short terminal stalk, and most commonly pear- 
shaped; at least, that is the shape which I have found most 
common in Massachusetts, and that almost universally con- 
nected with a leaf of five leaflets. This has been called the 
fig-shaped, (ficiformis), from its resemblance to a fresh fig. 
Another variety, also common, has the fruit nearly round, but 
often irregularly shaped; and a third, less common, has a large 
broad fruit. These differences in the shape of the fruit are con- 
nected with corresponding differences in the leaves, bark and 
appearance of the tree, inducing several botanists to consider 
them as distinct species. Michaux is probably right in making 
them only varieties. The husk has a smooth or granular sur- 
face, with seams depressed above and often prominent below, 
and sometimes so from top to bottom, extending nearly to the 
base, and dividing it into four unequal lobes. It is very thin, 
though not equally so in all the varieties, and crustaccous, but 
not hard. The nut has a hard and tough shell, sometimes thin 
but oftener pretty thick, of a bluish gray color and smooth 
surface. The kernel has at first a hazel-nut taste, which turns 
presently to a disagreeable bitter. Some varieties have a nut 
almost equa} to an inferior shellbark. The nuts grow single, 
or two, three, or four together. ‘They are often very abundant, 
several bushels being produced on a single tree, and they are 
then usually found growing in pairs. 
The wood of the pignut hickory, varying greatly in the dif- 
ferent varieties, has, in some, the excellent properties of this 
class of trees in greater perfection than either of the other spe- 
cies. It is therefore preferred for the axle-trees of carts, the 
heads of mallets and beetles, and the handles of axes. <A. beetle 
made of it, and used to drive stakes and iron wedges, outlasts, 
Tam told, any that can be made of any other wood, forcign or 
native. Asfuel, it is next to the species already described, and 
superior to all other woods. 
‘1 his hickory grows to a great size, being sometimes three or 
four feet in diameter, and rises to the height of seventy or eighty 
vet with a trunk very gradually tapering, and pretty large 
imbs. 
