200 WOODY PLANTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 
They are of a lively green, and, in autumn, assume often a rich 
orange color, a faint tinge of which they retain when the other 
species have grown russet and brown. Such is the prevailing 
character of the leaves in this vicinity. Elsewhere they are 
sometimes very large. 
The male flowers are in ternate, pendulous catkins, from 
three to six inches in length, very slender, and somewhat 
downy, and bristling less with the prolonged points of the scales 
than in the other hickories. The inconspicuous fertile flowers 
are on the ends of the branchlets, single, or two or more togeth- 
er, remarkable, when closely examined, for the very broad stig- 
mas which overlie the segments of the scaly and resinous calyx, 
the future envelope of the fruit. 
The fruit of the bitternut hickory is nearly round, or slightly 
compressed on one side, and is distinguished by the prominent 
winged edges of the seams, only two of which extend more than 
half way down. The husks smoothish, or slightly granulated, 
thin and fleshy, and never becomes very hard. ‘lhe nut is 
white and smooth, broader than it is long, and somewhat heart- 
shaped at the top. The shell is so thin, that it may be broken 
by the fingers, and contains a kernel remarkably corrugated, 
and so bitter, that squirrels refuse to feed on it while any other 
nut can be found, and even boys will not eat it. From the bark 
or husks of some one of the hickories, probably this, the Indians 
are said to have procured materials for coloring a permanent 
yellow. 
These are all the hickones of whose occurrence in Massachu- 
setts I am confident. The varieties of the pignut may here- 
after be elevated into species; and the species called by Mi- 
chaux the nutmeg hickory, will probably be found here. 1 
have seen nuts and leaves, which reminded me of the descrip- 
tion and figure of this species, but, forgetting their locality, I 
have been unable to verify my conjectures by observation. 
