A tree, sometimes 100° high on the bottoms of the Brazos River, with a tall straight trunk 3° in diameter, and ascending branches, or on the borders of prairies in low wet woods usually 15°—25° tall, with a short trunk 8′—10′ in diameter, small spreading branches forming a narrow round-topped head, and slender branchlets coated at first with thick hoary tomentum sometimes persistent until the autumn, bright red-brown and marked by occasional large pale lenticels during their first winter and by the large concave obcordate leaf-scars nearly surrounding the lowest axillary bud, becoming darker in their second season and dark or light gray-brown in their third year. Winter-buds covered with light yellow articulate hairs; the terminal oblong, acute, or acuminate, somewhat compressed, about ¼′ long, and rather longer than the upper lateral bud. Bark ½′—¾′ thick, light reddish brown, and roughened by closely appressed variously shaped plate-like scales. Wood close-grained, tough and strong, light red-brown, with pale brown sapwood.
Distribution. Bottom-lands and low wet woods; valley of the lower Brazos River, Texas; near Lake Charles, Calcasieu Parish, and Laurel Hill, West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana; near Natchez, Adams County, Mississippi; valley of the Arkansas River (Arkansas Post, Arkansas County, and Van Buren, Crawford County), Arkansas.
3. [Carya cordiformis] K. Koch. Pignut. Bitternut.
Leaves 6′—10′ long, with slender pubescent or hirsute petioles, and 7—9 lanceolate to ovate-lanceolate or obovate long-pointed sessile leaflets coarsely serrate except at the equally or unequally cuneate or subcordate base, thin and firm, dark yellow-green and glabrous above, lighter and pubescent below, especially along the midrib, 4′—6′ long, ¾′—1¼′ wide, or occasionally 2′—4′ wide (var. latifolia Sarg.). Flowers: staminate in slightly pubescent aments, 3′—4′ long, coated with rufous hairs like its ovate acute bract; stamens 4, with yellow anthers deeply emarginate and villose at apex; pistillate in 1 or 2-flowered spikes, slightly 4-angled, covered with yellow scurfy tomentum. Fruit cylindric or slightly compressed, ¾′—1½′ long, obovoid to subglobose, or oblong and acute at apex (var. elongata Ashe), 4-winged from the apex to about the middle, with a thin puberulous husk, more or less thickly coated with small yellow scales; nut ovoid or oblong, often broader than long, compressed and marked at base with dark lines along the sutures and alternate with them, depressed or obcordate, and abruptly contracted into a long or short point at apex, gray tinged with red or light reddish brown, with a thin brittle shell; seed bright reddish brown, very bitter, much compressed, deeply rugose, with irregular cross-folds.
A tree, often 100° high, with a tall straight trunk 2°—3° in diameter, stout spreading branches forming a broad handsome head, and slender branchlets marked by oblong pale lenticels, bright green and covered more or less thickly with rusty hairs when they first appear, reddish brown and glabrous or puberulous during their first summer, reddish brown and lustrous during the winter and ultimately light gray, with small elevated obscurely 3-lobed obcordate leaf-scars. Winter-buds compressed, scurfy pubescent, bright yellow; terminal ⅓′—¾′ long, oblique at apex, with 2 pairs of scales; lateral 2-angled, often stalked, ⅛′—¼′ long, with ovate pointed slightly accrescent scales keeled on the back. Bark ⅓′—¾′ thick, light brown tinged with red, and broken into thin plate-like scales separating on the surface into small thin flakes. Wood heavy, very hard, strong, tough, close-grained, dark brown, with thick light brown or often nearly white sapwood; largely used for hoops and ox-yokes, and for fuel.
Distribution. Low wet woods near the borders of streams and swamps or on high rolling uplands often remote from streams, southern Maine to Quebec and Ontario, the northern shores of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, northern Minnesota, southeastern Nebraska, eastern Kansas, eastern Oklahoma, and southward to northwestern Florida, Dallas County, Alabama, and eastern Texas; generally distributed, but not very abundant in all the central states east and west of the Appalachian Mountains; ranging farther north than the other species, and growing to its largest size on the bottom-lands of the lower Ohio basin; the common Hickory of Iowa, Nebraska, and Kansas.
A natural hybrid, × C. Brownii Sarg. of C. cordiformis with C. pecan, with characters intermediate between those of its supposed parents, occurs on bottom-land of the Arkansas River near Van Buren, Crawford County, Arkansas. Probably of the same parentage is the so-called Galloway Nut found in Hamilton County, Ohio. Another hybrid, × C. Brownii var. varians Sarg., probably of the same parentage also, occurs near Van Buren. × C. Laneyi Sarg., a natural hybrid evidently of C. cordiformis with C. ovata, has been found in Rochester, New York, and trees considered varieties of the same hybrid, var. chateaugayensis Sarg., occur near the mouth of the Chateaugay River, Province of Quebec, and at Summertown, Ontario.
4. [Carya aquatica] Nutt. Water Hickory.
