COMPLSMENTARY 
NEW SERIES VOL. Vll 
NO. 9 
ARNOLD ARBORETUM 
HARVARD UNIVERSITY 
BULLETIN 
OF 
POPULAR INFORMATION 
J.^M.-MCA PLAIN, MASS. JUNE 7, 1921 
Hickory -trees. No trees give more character to the flora of eastern 
North America than the Hickories; the trees of no other genus of 
plants of the United States produce food so valuable to man, and 
among them are individuals which are not surpassed in majestic beauty 
by any deciduous-leaved tree of the northern hemisphere. It was long 
believed that eastern North America was the sole possessor of Hick- 
ory-trees, but recently a species has been found in southern China, 
with Sassafras, Tulip-tree and Kentucky Coffee-tree another interest- 
ing link between the floras of eastern North America and eastern con- 
tinental Asia. The American Hickory-trees fall naturally into two 
groups. In the first group the trees, with one exception, have close 
bark, winter-buds covered with scales which do not overlap and fruit 
furnished with wings at the junction of the divisions of the thin husk. 
The shell of the nut of the species of this group, with one exception, 
is thin and brittle, and the kernel is bitter in some of the species and 
sweet in others. In the second group some species have scaly and 
others close bark, winter-buds covered with overlapping scales, and 
fruit without wings or with only slightly developed wings. The shell 
of the nut of the different species is thick or thin but is not brittle, 
and the kernel is always sweet. To the first group belongs the Pecan 
{Carya pecan), a tree of the lower Mississippi valley, eastern Texas 
and northeastern Mexico which on deep rich bottom land sometimes 
reaches the height of one hundred and eighty feet and forms a tall 
massive trunk six feet in diameter, and a broad crown of slightly pen- 
dulous branches. In beauty few trees surpass the Pecan, and no tree 
which grows beyond the tropics equals it in the abundance and value 
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