Nutmeg hickory (Hicoria myristicæformis. Michaux).—Leaflets five to seven, ovate-lanceolate, pointed, quite smooth on both sides, the terminal leaflet sessile, not stalked; fruit oval; husk wrinkled and rough, thick; nut small, oval, short-pointed; the shell furrowed and very hard, and of a brownish color marked with white lines. Michaux says: "The shell is so thick that it constitutes two-thirds of the volume of the nut, which, consequently, is extremely hard, and has a minute kernel. It is inferior to the pignut."
A medium-size tree with slender branches, found in a few localities in South Carolina, near swamps and borders of streams, and westward to Arkansas, where it reaches its greatest development. This hickory has been so rarely seen by botanists that Michaux's specific name, given it more than eighty years ago, has fared a better fate than those of our more common and abundant species; consequently, I have only one synonym to record, viz.: Carya amara, var. myristicæformis, Cooper, in Smithsonian Report, 1858.
[FIG. 52]. LARGE, LONG PECAN NUT.
Water hickory, swamp hickory, bitter pecan (Hicoria aquatica. Michaux).—Leaflets nine to thirteen, generally eleven, narrow and obliquely lanceolate-pointed, slightly serrate, thin and smooth; fruit globular or somewhat egg-shaped, four-ribbed; husk thin, dividing at maturity down to the base; nut thin-shelled, four-angled; kernel much wrinkled and very bitter. This is closely allied to if not a more Southern form of our common bitternut. A small tree in swamps and river bottoms from North Carolina south to Florida, and west to Texas.
[FIG. 53]. OVAL PECAN NUT.
Synonyms:
Juglans aquatica, Michaux.
Hicorius integrifolia, Rafinesque.
Carya aquatica, Nuttall.
Carya integrifolia, Sprengel.
Varieties of the Hickories.—Every one who has ever had occasion to gather or examine hickory nuts in the forest, or has seen them in market, must be aware of the fact that there is an almost endless variety of each and all the different species. But as it is only the varieties of the pecan and thick- and thin-shelled shagbark hickories that are likely to be of any economic value to the nut culturist, all others will be omitted. Of the first or pecan nut the natural varieties are not only exceedingly numerous, but vary widely in size, form, thickness of shell, and productiveness of the individual trees. In some the nuts are produced singly or in pairs, and from this number up to clusters of seven or eight; these large-clustered and extra-prolific varieties are most worthy of special attention, especially when the nuts are of good size and thin-shelled, as in the large, long pecan (Fig. 52). From this size they vary, as shown in Figs. 53, 54, 55. Some of the wild varieties have received local names, and a very few propagated by grafting, which is probably the most practical means known of multiplying them, and at the same time preserving their varietal characteristics. Choice and extra fine ones are constantly being discovered and brought to notice, and doubtless many more will follow as the old fields and forests of the South and West are explored; besides, there are many thousands of seedling trees now under cultivation, and from these we may expect some marked variations from the original or wild forms. In Bulletin 105, of the North Carolina Agricultural Experiment Station for 1894, and in Report of Assistant Pomologist of U. S. Department of Agriculture for same year, we find the following-named varieties of pecans: