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.
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.
BUTTERNUT
Juglans cinerea
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TRUNK OF A BUTTERNUT
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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.
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.
BLACK WALNUT
Juglans nigra
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TRUNK OF A BLACK WALNUT
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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.
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.
SHAGBARK HICKORY
Hicoria ovata
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TRUNKS OF SHAGBARK HICKORIES
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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.
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.
MOCKERNUT HICKORY
Hicoria alba
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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.
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.
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.
BITTERNUT HICKORY
Hicoria minima
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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.
PIGNUT HICKORY
Hicoria glabra
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Chapter VI
THE BIRCHES, HOP HORNBEAM, AND HORNBEAM
CANOE BIRCH
Betula papyrifera
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