302 



WEEDS AXD USEFUL PLAXTS. 



past, the trees (or, at least, the branches), in the spring, appeared every- 

 where to be diseased and dying ; but they have still recovered again, more 

 or less completely, in the course of the summer. The cause of this phe- 

 nomenon, — (whether insects, as some suppose — or late unseasonable 

 frosts, as I incline to think,) has not been satisfactorily determined. 



Order LXYI. JUGLANDA'CE^. (Walxut Family.) 



Trees with a resinous sweet or watery juice^ alternate and odd-pinnate leaves^ without sti- 

 ■pules, and monoecious flowers, — the staminate ones with an irregular calyx in aments, — the 

 pistillate ones with a regular 3-o-lobed calyx, adherent to the ovary, solitary or in small 

 clusters. Ova7-y incompletely 2 - 4-celled , with but one ovule, becoming in fruit a kind of dry 

 drupe, with a bony endocarp (nut-shell), containing a large 4-lobed seed, without albumen. 

 Cotyledons fleshy and oily, sinuate-lobed. 



An Order consisting chiefly of Walnuts and Hickories, — valuable for their wood and 

 some of them for their fruit. 



1. JU'GLANS, L. Walnut. 



[Latin, Jovis Glans, the nut of Jupiter ; by way of eminence.] 



Aments of staminate fi. simple, cylindric, proceeding from buds without 

 leaves. Calyx adnateto an entire 1-flowered bract, 5 or 6-parted, — the 

 segments membranaceous, unequal Stamens numerous, sub-sessile. 

 Pistillate fl. terminal, solitary, or few and- clustered. Calyx-tube ovoid 

 adherent to the ovary, — the limb 4-toothed, with 4 small petals alternat- 

 ing with the calyx teeth. Styles 2, very short. Stigmas 2, elongated, 

 recurved, papillose-fimbriate. Fruit drupaceous, containing a single 

 nut, — the epicarp (or hull) somewhat fleshy, fibrous within, indehiscent, 

 — the nut w^oody, rugose and irregularly sulcate. Juice resinous-arom- 

 atic •, pith separated into transverse laminae or plates ; young branches 

 brittle. Trees with nearly naked buds and odd-pinnate leaves of 

 numerous serrate leaflets. 



1. J. re'gia, L. Leaflets oval, rather acute, smooth, nearly entire ; fruit 

 roundish-oval ; nut sab-compressed, smoothish. 



EoYAL JuGLAXS. English Walnut. Madeira Nut. 



Fr. Noyer commun. Germ. Die Wallnuss. Span. Noguera. 



20-30 or 40 feet high, branched. Leaflets 2-5 inches long, acute, or sometimes 

 rounded and emarginate at apex, subserrate or entire, villous iii the angles of the nerves 

 beneath, in 3-5 pairs with a terminal odd one, — the lower pairs smaller. Aments ovoid- 

 oblong, 2-3 inches in length. Pistillaie flowers in small terminal clusters of 2-3, on a 

 rather short common peduncle. Drupe ovai or subglobose, mucronate, about 2 inches long 

 and 1-2 iuches in diameter, with a smoothish subcoriaceous epicarp ; nut smoothish or 

 somewhat corrugated. 

 About houses : cultivated. Native of Persia. Fl. May. lY. Oct. 



Obs. This oriental species is called English Walnut, in consequence, 

 as I suppose, of its having come to us by way of the mother country. 

 Such misnomers are not unfrequent, among cultivated plants. This one 



