=Distribution.=--Southwestern Ontario south to Alabama and west to
Louisiana, Nebraska and Iowa. Found throughout Indiana, except there are
as yet no records from the extreme northwest counties. It is frequent to
common in moist rich woods, or in river bottoms which is its favorite
habitat. It is usually associated with the shellbark hickory where it
grows in moist situations. Sometimes in the river bottoms it grows in
situations too wet for the shellbark hickory. In the lower Wabash
bottoms it becomes a common tree.
=Remarks.=--This hickory is also known as the big scaly-bark hickory and
hard-head hickory. The nuts are an article of commerce and by some are
preferred to the shellbark hickory although the nuts are hard to crack.
This objection is easily overcome by wetting the nuts, and drying them
by using heat which cracks the shell, making them easy to crack.
=5.= =Carya álba= (Linnæus) K. Koch. White Hickory. Plate 26. Medium
sized tall trees up to 10 dm. in diameter; bark tight, of two types, one
light colored, thin and fissured into a network. This form has been seen
only in the river bottoms of the southwestern part of the State. The
common type of bark is thick, with thick ridges, dark but on the older
trees it weathers to a light gray and becomes thickly covered with
lichens; terminal twigs of branches at end of season stout, 3.5-7 mm. in
diameter near the tip, densely hairy at first and remaining hairy
throughout the season or becoming almost glabrous, reddish-brown;
terminal bud large, ovate, 10-20 mm. long; ordinary leaves 2-4 dm. long,
the rachis and under side of leaflets densely hairy when they unfold,
remaining pubescent until maturity; leaflets 5-9, prevailing number 7,
long-oval, ovate-lanceolate, or obovate; fruit usually globose, more
rarely short elliptic, ovate or obovoid, the husk rather tardily opening
to nearly the base, or only checking open at the top; dried husk 3-8 mm.
thick; nut variable in shape, little compressed, somewhat globose, a
little longer than wide, more rarely wider than long or short elliptic,
usually 2.5-3.5 cm. long, generally rounded at the base and
short-pointed at the apex, more rarely pointed at the base and long
pointed at the apex, (one specimen is at hand that is almost a square
box), usually with 4-6 angles, on some forms obscure; shell thick;
kernel very small, sweet; wood and uses same as shellbark hickory.
[Illustration: Plate 26.