THE WALNUTS AND HICKORIES
Family Juglandaceæ
Few trees are more lofty and majestic than certain species of walnuts
and hickories. They are stately in summer, but in winter, when the
foliage has gone and every branch and twig is thrown in black relief
against the sky, their beauty is truly imposing.
Both walnuts and hickories are valuable timber trees, and the nuts of
several species are sweet and edible.
Two genera of this family are found in America,—_Juglans_ and
_Hicoria_. Of the first genus there are two species native in the
Northeastern States,—the butternut and the black walnut.
[Sidenote: Butternut
_Juglans cinerea_]
_A low, spreading tree, branching a short way up the trunk. Gray
bark, slightly fissured, the clefts not running together. Recent
shoots downy, with a fringe of hair over the leaf-scar. Leaf-scars
conspicuous, alternate, the bundle-scars horseshoe (U) shaped. Light
brown buds destitute of scales. Terminal bud encloses pistillate
flowers, which are fertilized by the staminate flowers enclosed in the
pineapple-like bud over the leaf-scars. These staminate flowers hang in
one long catkin, which drops off after shedding the pollen in spring.
The superposed buds (two or three over the leaf-scars) contain the side
branches. Pith light brown and chambered,—by cutting a twig lengthwise
this can be seen,—a characteristic of the Juglans family._
[Illustration: BUTTERNUT
_Juglans cinerea_
Page 46
]
[Illustration: TRUNK OF A BUTTERNUT
Page 47
]
Among all the native trees, the butternut is perhaps the most
interesting for winter study. The naked buds, the irregular leaf-scars,
with horseshoe bundle-scars, the superposed buds containing the
lateral branches and the queerly marked buds of the staminate flowers,
the chambered pith, and the little fringes of down on the stems,
every structural detail of this tree is interesting and unusual. The
butternut is one of the few trees among the _Juglandaceæ_ which is not
tall and beautiful in outline. It is a low tree, with wide-spreading,
rather straggling branches, frequently ill shapen and uncouth in
appearance. It is usually associated in our minds with country lanes,
and growing by the walls and fences bordering open pastures
and farm lands, and in these surroundings it seems pleasing and
appropriate; but when we find it planted in parks and cultivated
grounds it seems commonplace and insignificant. It is found in all
the New England States, in New York, and in Pennsylvania. Very large
specimens grow in the valley of the Connecticut River.
The wood of the butternut is light brown in color, it is light, soft,
and easily worked, and is much used for furniture, gunstocks, and for
the interior finish of houses. The inner bark is used medicinally, and
a dye is made from the bark and nutshells. An excellent pickle is made
from the young nuts, and the kernels are sweet and edible, although
rather rich and oily. Professor Gray tried the experiment of making
sugar from the sap of the butternut. He found that it took four trees
to yield nine quarts of sap (one and a quarter pounds of sugar), the
amount that one sugar maple yields.
The generic name, _Juglans_, comes from _Jovis glans_, the nut of Jove,
in reference to the excellence of the fruit, and the specific name,
_cinerea_ (ash-colored), probably alludes to the color of the bark.
[Sidenote: Black Walnut
_Juglans nigra_]
_A large tree, 50 to 120 feet high, with spreading branches and rough
bark, darker in color than that of the butternut. The buds are gray
instead of light brown like those of the butternut, and they are
shorter. The twigs are smooth in winter, without hair, and the pith is
chambered. Alternate, conspicuous leaf-scars. Characteristic difference
between the two trees is that the fringe of hair over the leaf-scar in
the butternut is absent in the black walnut._
The black walnut is a striking contrast to the butternut. It is tall
and erect, with a broad, spacious head and vigorous, wide-spreading
branches. The bark is much darker and rougher than that of the
butternut, and the buds are smaller, and gray rather than yellowish in
color, like those of the other species.
[Illustration: BLACK WALNUT
_Juglans nigra_
Page 48
]
[Illustration: TRUNK OF A BLACK WALNUT
Page 49
]
The wood is heavy, strong, and durable, and dark brown in color. It
takes polish well and is much used in cabinet making, boat-building,
interior house finishing, and for gunstocks and coffins. A valuable
wood in many ways, but the passing of the fashion for black walnut
furniture is not to be regretted. It has been cut most recklessly in
our forests during the last twenty-five years, and already it has been
almost exterminated in the Mississippi Basin. Individual trees are
now sold where there used to be whole tracts of black walnut forests.
In Tennessee last year, dealers were buying stumps of old walnut trees
which had been left when the trees were first cut, in the early days
of the lumber trade. Each stump brought more money than the whole tree
originally sold for.
Its fruit is edible, and an oil is made from its kernels. A kind of
bread has also been made from the kernels of these nuts, and the husks
are used as a dye.
The black walnut is found growing wild in the Northeastern States, but
it is more common west than east of the Alleghanies.
The English walnut, _Juglans regia_, originally came from Persia,
and is sometimes cultivated here. An interesting cross between the
English walnut and our native butternut is found on the north side of
Houghton’s Pond in the Blue Hills, Massachusetts. Only a few of these
hybrids are known to exist, and all of them are said to grow in the
vicinity of Boston.
[Sidenote: Shagbark; or Shellbark Hickory
_Hicoria ovata_]
_A tall, stately tree, 70 to 90 feet high; unmistakable on account
of its rough, flaking bark, which shags off in large plates.
Yellowish brown buds, with two outer dark scales, which also shag
characteristically. Coarse twigs; alternate leaf-scars. The husk of
the nut splits and breaks off._
This is a tree peculiar to Northeastern America, and one of the
most rugged, magnificent specimens to be found anywhere in the same
temperate climate. It is especially adapted for broad treatment in
landscape gardening, and should be planted where there is plenty of
room for its full development, and where one can admire its lofty
proportions and symmetry. It is one among many trees, which is seen at
its best in winter unhampered by foliage, and then its naked boughs
are so inky black, that it seems as if it were etched against the sky.
These very dark colored branches are characteristic of the hickories,
and help one to distinguish the trees at a distance. The rough bark
shagging off in curving plates, and the buds with the same shagging,
curving outer scales are the distinctive characteristics of the
shagbark in winter.
[Illustration: SHAGBARK HICKORY
_Hicoria ovata_
Page 50
]
[Illustration: TRUNKS OF SHAGBARK HICKORIES
Page 51
]
The wood is heavy, hard, tough, and close-grained, and it is used for
agricultural implements, axe handles, wagon stock, walking sticks, and
baskets. In tensile strength and in the weight of compression, a block
of hickory is as strong as wrought iron of the same length and weight.
No other American wood burns with such brilliancy or gives out so
much heat as the shagbark. The fruit of this tree is edible and sweet,
and the nuts have greater commercial value than those of any other
hickory.
The generic name, _hicoria_, is of Indian origin and comes from
_powcohicora_, the name of an oily emulsion made from the pounded
kernels of mockernuts by the Virginian Algonkins. _Ovata_ (egg-shaped)
refers to the shape of the leaves.
The shagbark is found from Southern Maine to Florida and westward to
Central Kansas. The forests of Indiana, once the centre of the hickory
trade, are now exhausted. The hickories are confined to Eastern North
America alone, and are a genus of rare and very valuable trees.
[Sidenote: Mockernut; or Whiteheart Hickory
_Hicoria alba_]
_A tall tree 60 to 100 feet high, with a lofty head. Bark smooth,
with close, wavy furrows,—a distinctive characteristic of the tree.
Large, hard, round buds, without the dark outer scales peculiar to
the shagbark, but with downy, yellowish brown scales. Coarse twigs;
alternate leaf-scars. Nut somewhat hexagonal, with a very thick shell,
and a hard, thick husk._
The mockernut is one of the most interesting of the hickories in
winter. Its bark has a peculiar wavy appearance, entirely unlike any
other member of the family. The hollows are close together in sinuous,
shallow furrows, and the bark is so smooth over these fissures that
it looks as if the ridges were trying to grow over and close up the
hollows,—the effect is that of a thin, silk veil drawn over the trunk.
The twigs are large and heavily moulded, with large oval buds, but they
produce a pleasing effect of strength, instead of seeming ugly and
coarse, like those of the horsechestnut. The curves and irregularities
the stem takes in growing, and the general alternate plan of branching
save the mockernut from being rigid and upright like the horsechestnut.
The mockernut is easily distinguished from every other hickory by its
peculiar bark, its smooth, large buds, and coarse stems.
[Illustration: MOCKERNUT HICKORY
_Hicoria alba_
Page 52
]
Its wood is used for the same purposes as that of the shagbark and is
equally valuable. Its nut is large and sweet, and if the tree were
put under cultivation, it would probably equal that of the shagbark
in commercial value. As it is now, however, the shell is too thick,
hard, and difficult to crack, and the kernel too small in proportion
to the shell to make it marketable. The experiment of cultivating the
mockernut to improve its fruit would be an interesting one, and
certainly both the nuts of the mockernut and shagbark deserve as much
attention as the English walnut.
Both the specific names,—the Latin _alba_, and the English
white-heart—refer to the color of the wood. This tree is found in New
England and also in the West and South.
[Sidenote: Bitternut Hickory
_Hicoria minima_]
_A large tree, with a light, granite-gray bark. Slender twigs, the
recent shoots orange-green and dotted. Alternate leaf-scars. Buds
long, curved, flattened, and pointed, the lateral ones shorter and
more round than the terminal buds; all are orange-yellow in color,—the
distinguishing characteristic of the tree. The nuts are bitter._
If the characteristic of the bitternut’s flattened, orange buds is
remembered, this tree can be distinguished not only in winter, but at
every other season of the year. The hickories are constantly confused,
and the fact that they often hybridize complicates matters still more.
Such an unfailing means of identification as these yellow buds is,
therefore, a great help, and as there are always one or two lateral
buds lying dormant along the stem, after the buds have opened in the
spring, and as new buds are formed by the middle of the summer, there
is scarcely a lapse of time when they fail to distinguish the tree.
The bitternut is the most graceful of all the hickories. It has a
smooth, tapering trunk and delicate twigs.
Its wood is heavy, hard, tough, and close-grained, and is used for
the yokes of oxen, for hoops and fuel. The nuts are so bitter that
squirrels refuse them as food.
The specific name, _minima_ (the smallest), refers to the branches
and foliage of the tree, which are more delicate than those of other
hickories. The range is the same as that of the shagbark and mockernut.
[Sidenote: Pignut Hickory
_Hicoria glabra_]
_A large tree, 70 to 80 feet high, with a tapering trunk and smooth
gray bark, which does not shag. The buds are yellowish brown, and
smaller than those of other hickories, with no black outer scales like
those of the shagbark, and smaller than the mockernut buds. The buds
are either round, or egg-shaped. Delicate twigs; alternate leaf-scars.
The nut has a thick shell and poor kernel; the husk does not split all
the way down as it does with the shagbark._
[Illustration: BITTERNUT HICKORY
_Hicoria minima_
Page 53
]
If it were possible for trees to have negative characters, the pignut
would be eminently negative. In fact, its distinguishing characteristic
is that it has no one distinctive feature to identify it in
winter, as all the other hickories have. Its bark is not wavy like
the mockernut, and it does not shag like the shagbark; its buds are
not yellow like the bitternut, nor large like the mockernut, nor has
it black outer scales like the shagbark; its nuts are neither bitter
nor sweet,—and yet these very negative qualities are a sure means of
identification. One knows the pignut in much the same way that David
Harum knew he had bought a horse, “the only thing to determine that
fact was that it wa’n’t nothin’ else.” All praise, however, to the
outline of the pignut against a winter sky. The tracery of its twigs
and branches is delicate and graceful, and it looks as if it were
drawn with the blackest India ink. Michaux calls the pignut one of the
largest trees in the United States, and it certainly compares well with
the three other native hickories in its general bearing, for it is as
stately and beautiful in outline as they, in spite of its negative
characteristics in details.
The wood is like that of other hickories and it is used for the same
purposes. The nuts vary much in shape and size. Some of them are
oval, others broader than they are long, others perfectly round, and
the sizes vary as much as the shapes. The nuts are not marketable,
although they are not unpleasant to the taste and afford squirrels a
supply of food for winter.
The specific name, _glabra_ (smooth), refers to the shoots and leaves,
which are smoother than those of other hickories.
The range of the pignut is the same as that of other members of the
genus; it is found throughout New England and in the West and South.
[Illustration: PIGNUT HICKORY
_Hicoria glabra_
Page 54
]