[FIG. 46]. LEAF AND STERILE CATKINS OF SHELLBARK HICKORY.
[FIG. 47]. WESTERN SHELLBARK.
Big shellbark, thick or Western shellbark, etc. (Hicoria laciniosa. Michaux).—Leaflets seven to nine, obovate-oblong, finely serrate, roughish-downy or pubescent beneath. Buds large, composed of rather loose grayish scales; the young twigs stout, with a gray bark, most noticeable in winter. Fruit large, oval to oblong, usually four-ribbed above the middle, with depressions between; husk thick, somewhat spongy, shrinking at maturity, and splitting open from top downward. Nut large, with prominent ridges, and strongly pointed, but slightly compressed at the sides, as seen in Fig. 47; shell thick and of a dull yellowish color; kernel moderately large, as shown across section of nut in Fig. 48, but much smaller in proportion to the size of the nut than in the two preceding species, but it is sweet, well flavored, and easily removed from the shell when cracked. The very large size of these nuts makes them a favorite, especially where the pecan and the true shellbarks are not plentiful. These nuts were formerly known as the Springfield or Gloucester nut. A very large tree, sixty to eighty feet high, and two to four feet in diameter, with thick, scaly bark, the scales somewhat thicker than in the common shellbark hickory of the Atlantic States. A rare tree, except in the valleys west of the Alleghanies, although it is reported to have been found in Chester county, Pennsylvania, and thence west to southern Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, eastern Kansas, and the Indian Territory. Plentiful in the bottom lands along the Ohio, Mississippi and lower Missouri. Elliott, in "Botany of South Carolina and Georgia" (1824), says it is rare in the low country of Carolina, but he does not say that it is found plentiful anywhere in the South. That he was sometimes in doubt in regard to the identification of this and other species may be inferred from his remark, namely: "The greater part of our hickories resemble each other so closely in their leaves and vary so much in their fruit that it is very difficult to discriminate the species."
[FIG. 48]. SECTION WESTERN SHELLBARK.
It is this difficulty of identification which has led to so much confusion in the application of the specific names, for the earlier botanists rarely had an opportunity of a close and careful examination of the trees or other plants which they attempted to describe. In relation to the species under consideration, we find that the specific name of sulcata, so long in use, was adopted by Nuttall, from some earlier or contemporaneous author,—a system he followed with all the different species of the hickory, but without, in some instances, any discrimination or regard to their adaptation or validity. If there was anything to show that Willdenow (1796) had this Western shellbark in mind, or that he or his correspondents in this country had ever seen or collected it, then we might adopt the name of sulcata as the original and true one; but in the absence of such information, with a full and accurate description of the species and its habitats by Michaux, under the name of laciniosa, I think, in common justice to one of the most eminent dendrologists who ever visited this country, the name given should stand as the true one for this species. See Michaux, "North American Sylva," Vol. I, p. 128.
Synonyms:
Juglans sulcata (?), Willdenow, 1796.
Juglans laciniosa, Michaux, 1810.
Carya sulcata, Nuttall, 1818.
Carya cordiformis, Koch, Dendrologie.