354 
DECIDUOUS TREES. 
The different species of the hickory vary from one another less 
in their appearance, as they grow old, than most other trees. 
While young the differences are more marked, but when the trees 
are from thirty to fifty years old, all have the same general charac- 
teristics of forms and shadows when seen from a distance — the 
variations in their bark being the most marked difference between 
them. 
The following are the principal varieties — all natives of our 
country ; 
The Shell-bark Hickory. Cary a alba . — This species is not 
excelled in beauty of leaf or form by any of 
the others, and excels them all in the quality of 
its nut, the toughness and value of its wood in 
the arts, and its superiority over all other woods 
for fuel. But though hard and heavy, and 
strong beyond other timber, no wood rots 
quicker when exposed to moisture. When 
young the bark is smooth ; but after the wood is 
from twelve to fifteen years old it is generally 
distinguished from the other hickories by its sin- 
gularly scaly, or laminate outer bark, which, on old trees, fre- 
quently drops off in broad pieces from two to four feet in length, 
and from one-eighth to a quarter of an inch in thickness, or may be 
pulled off readily without injury to the tree. This bark is of a cin- 
namon-brown color on the inside, is full of oil, and valued above 
all other kindlings for the quick, bright, hot fire it makes. 
The tree grows rapidly, and when young the leaves are very 
large ; each leaf being composed of five leaflets (rarely seven), those 
of the terminal triplet being usually from five to seven inches 
long, but much larger in thrifty young trees, and smaller in old 
trees. Their color is a deep glossy green — darker than most trees. 
The nuts are whiter and thinner shelled than those of other species, 
and about an inch in longest diameter ; but there is much differ- 
ence, as in fruit trees, between different trees of the same species, in 
the size and quality of the nut. All things considered this is de- 
cidedly the most valuable of the hickories. On page 352 we give a 
Fig. III. 
