78 
MOCKERNUT HICKORY. 
The first of these denominations, which is descriptive of the fruit, I have 
for that reason adopted. 
This species is not, as the name which it bears in that country would 
indicate, more multiplied in Pennsylvania, and further south, than the 
other Hickories. I have not seen it north of Portsmouth in New Hamp- 
shire, though 100 miles south, in the neighborhood of Boston and Provi- 
dence, it is common. It is most abundant in the forests that still remain 
on the coast of the middle States, and in those which cover the upper parts 
of the Carolinas and of Georgia ; but in the last mentioned States, it be- 
comes more rare in approaching the sea, as the sterility of the soil, in 
general dry and sandy, is unpropitioiis to its growth. I have noticed, 
however, that this is the only Hickory which springs in the Pine Barrens : 
the sprouts are burnt every year, and never rise higher than 3 or 4 feet, I 
have made the same observation in traversing the big Barrens of Kentucky 
and Tennessee, where the Mockernut Hickory and Black Jack Oak alone 
are seen. They survive the conflagrations, which almost every spring 
envelop the prairies, but their vegetation is checked by the fire, and they 
do not exceed the height of 8 or 10 feet. 
Like most of the Walnuts, the Mockernut Hickory flourishes in rich 
soils, and chiefly oq the gentle acclivities which surround the swamps, 
where it grows, mingled with the Sweet Gum, Poplar, Sugar Maple, Bit- 
ternut Hickory, and Black Walnut. In these situations it reaches its 
greatest size, which is commonly about 60 feet in height, and 18 or 20 
inches in diameter. I remember to have seen larger Mockernut Hickories 
near Lexington in Kentucky, but this extraordinary growth in several 
species of trees is rarely seen on this side of the Alleghany, and is attribut- 
able to the extreme fertility of the soil, in the Western country. Of all the 
Hickories, however, the Mockernut succeeds best on lands of a middling 
quality ; for it forms a part of the waste and impoverished forests which 
covmr the meager sandy soil of Lower Virginia, though under these disad- 
vantages it exhibits but a mean and stunted appearance. 
The buds of this species are large, short, of a grayish white, and very 
hard ; in the winter, after the falling of the leaf, they afford the only 
characteristic by which the tree can be distinguished, when it exceeds ^ 
or 10 feet in height. In the beginning of May, the buds swell, the exter- 
nal scales fall off, and the inner ones soon after burst and display the young 
leaf. The leaves grow so rapidly, that I have seen them gain 20 inches 
in eighteen days. They are composed of 4 pair of sessile leaflets, and 
terminated by an odd one. The leaflets are large oval-acuminate, slightly 
serrate, odorous, pretty thick, and hairy underneath, as is also the common 
petiole to which they are attached. With the first frost, the leavms change 
to a beautiful yellow, and fall soon after. The male flowers appear on 
pendulous, downy, axillary aments, 6 or 8 inches long ; the female flowers 
