Carya texana Buckl., not Le Conte.
Leaves 8′—12′ long, with slender petioles rusty pubescent and sparingly villose early in the season, and 5—7, usually 7, lanceolate to oblanceolate acuminate bluntly serrate sessile leaflets, the terminal occasionally broadly obovate and abruptly pointed, and sometimes raised on a winged stalk ¼—½′ in length, when they unfold thickly covered with rusty pubescence mixed with small white scales and villose on the lower side of the midrib and veins, and at maturity dark green, lustrous, glabrous or puberulous along the midrib above, paler, glabrous or sparingly villose and furnished with small tufts of axillary hairs below, the upper three leaflets 4′—6′ long and 2′—2¼′ wide, and twice the size of those of the lowest pair. Flowers: staminate in rusty pubescent aments 2′—3′ long, their bract slender, long acuminate, 3 or 4 times longer than the acuminate calyx-lobes; stamens 4 or 5, anthers yellow, slightly villose toward the apex; pistillate in 1 or 2-flowered short-stalked spikes, slightly angled, thickly coated with rufous hairs like the bract and bractlets. Fruit subglobose, puberulous, 1¼′—1¾′ in diameter, with a husk 1/12′—⅛′ thick, splitting freely to the base by slightly winged sutures; nut slightly compressed, rounded at base, abruptly narrowed and acute at apex, 4-angled above the middle or nearly to the base, dark reddish brown, conspicuously reticulate-venulose with pale veins, with a shell about ⅛′ thick; in drying often cracking longitudinally between the angles; seed small and sweet.
A tree, usually 30°—45° or rarely 60° high, with a trunk 12′—24′ in diameter, large spreading often drooping more or less contorted branches forming a narrow head, and slender light red-brown branchlets marked by pale lenticels, more or less densely rusty pubescent during their first season and dark gray-brown and glabrous or nearly glabrous the following year. Winter-buds ovoid, covered with rusty pubescence mixed with silvery scales, furnished at apex with long pale hairs; the terminal bud abruptly contracted and long-pointed at apex, ⅖′—½′ in length and ¼′—⅓′ in diameter, and 2 or 3 times larger than the flattened acute lateral buds. Bark thick, deeply furrowed, rough, dark often nearly black. Wood hard, brittle, little used except for fuel.
Distribution. Dry sandy uplands with Post and Black Jack Oaks; northern and eastern Texas (Grayson, Cherokee, San Augustine and Atascosa Counties), and in central Oklahoma (dry sand hills, Muskogee County).
Carya Buckleyi var. arkansana Sarg.
Carya arkansana Sarg.
Differing from Carya Buckleyi in the shape of the fruit and sometimes in the bark of the trunk. Fruit obovoid, rounded at apex, rounded or gradually narrowed or abruptly contracted into a more or less developed stipe at base, or ellipsoidal, or ovoid and rounded at the ends, ⅘′—1½′ in length and in diameter, with a husk 1/12′—⅙′ thick, splitting to the middle or nearly to the base by slightly winged sutures; nut oblong to slightly obovoid, rounded at the ends, compressed, slightly 4-angled occasionally to the middle, pale brown, with a shell ⅙′—⅕′ in thickness; seed small and sweet.
A tree from 60°—75° high, with a trunk 2° in diameter; southward usually much smaller. Bark on some trees dark gray, irregularly fissured, separating into thin scales, and on others close, nearly black and deeply divided into rough ridges.