Distribution. Rich moist soil near the banks of streams and on low rocky hills, southern New Brunswick to the valley of the St. Lawrence River in Ontario, the northern peninsular of Michigan, southern Minnesota, eastern South Dakota, eastern Iowa, southeastern Nebraska, and southward to central Kansas, northern Arkansas, Delaware, eastern Virginia, and on the Appalachian Mountains and their foothills to northern Georgia; in northern Alabama, southern Illinois and western Tennessee; most abundant northward.
Occasionally cultivated.
× Juglans quadrangulata A. Rehd., a natural hybrid of J. cinerea and the so-called English Walnut (J. regia) is not uncommon in eastern Massachusetts, and a hybrid of J. cinerea with the Japanese J. Sieboldiana Maxm. has appeared in the United States.
2. [Juglans nigra] L. Black Walnut.
Leaves 1°—2° long, with pubescent petioles, and 15—23 ovate-lanceolate leaflets 3′—3½′ long, 1′—1¼′ wide, long-pointed, sharply serrate except at the more or less rounded often unequal base, thin, bright yellow-green, lustrous and glabrous above, soft-pubescent below, especially along the slender midrib and primary veins; turning bright clear yellow in the autumn before falling. Flowers: staminate in stout puberulous aments 3′—5′ long, calyx rotund, 6-lobed, with nearly orbicular lobes concave and pubescent on the outer surface, its bract ¼′ long, nearly triangular, coated with rusty brown or pale tomentum; stamens 20—30, arranged in many series, with nearly sessile purple and truncate connectives; pistillate in 2—5 flowered spikes, ovoid, gradually narrowed at the apex, ¼′ long, their bract and bractlets coated below with pale glandular hairs and green and puberulous above, sometimes irregularly cut into a laciniate border, or reduced to an obscure ring just below the apex of the ovary; calyx-lobes ovate, acute, light green, puberulous on the outer, glabrous or pilose on the inner surface; stigmas yellow-green tinged on the margins with red, ½′—¾′ long. Fruit solitary or in pairs, globose, oblong and pointed at apex, or slightly pyriform, light yellow-green, roughened by clusters of short pale articulate hairs, 1½′—2′ in diameter, with a thick husk; nut oval or oblong, slightly flattened, 1⅛′—1½′ in diameter, dark brown tinged with red, deeply divided on the outer surface into thin or thick often interrupted irregular ridges, 4-celled at base and slightly 2-celled at the apex; seed sweet, soon becoming rancid.
A tree, frequently 100° and occasionally 150° high, with a straight trunk often clear of branches for 50°—60° and 4°—6° in diameter, thick limbs spreading gradually and forming a comparatively narrow shapely round-topped head of mostly upright rigid branches, and stout branchlets covered at first with pale or rusty matted hairs, dull orange-brown and pilose or puberulous during their first winter, marked by raised conspicuous orange-colored lenticels and elevated pale leaf-scars, gradually growing darker and ultimately light brown. Winter-buds: terminal ovoid, slightly flattened, obliquely rounded at apex, coated with pale silky tomentum, ⅓′ long, with usually 4 obscurely pinnate scales; axillary ⅛′ long, tomentose, their outer scales opening at the apex during the winter. Bark of young stems and branches light brown and covered with thin scales, becoming on old trees 2′—3′ thick, dark brown slightly tinged with red, and deeply divided into broad rounded ridges broken on the surface into thick appressed scales. Wood heavy, hard, strong, rather coarse-grained, very durable, rich dark brown, with thin lighter colored sapwood of 10—20 layers of annual growth; largely used in cabinet-making, the interior finish of houses, gun-stocks, air-planes, and in boat and shipbuilding.
Distribution. Rich bottom-lands and fertile hillsides, western Massachusetts to southern Ontario, southern Michigan, southeastern Minnesota, central and northern Nebraska, central Kansas, eastern Oklahoma, and southward to western Florida, central Alabama and Mississippi, and the valley of the San Antonio River, Texas; most abundant in the region west of the Alleghany Mountains, and of its largest size on the western slopes of the high mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee, and on the fertile river bottom-lands of southern Illinois and Indiana, southwestern Arkansas, and Oklahoma; largely destroyed for its valuable timber, and now rare.
Occasionally cultivated as an ornamental tree in the eastern United States, and in western and central Europe. × Juglans intermedia Carr., a natural hybrid, of J. nigra with the so-called English Walnut (J. regia) has appeared in the United States and Europe, and on the banks of the James River in Virginia has grown to a larger size than any other recorded Walnut-tree. In California a hybrid, known as “Royal,” between J. nigra and J. Hindsii has been artificially produced.