The bark on the trunk is granite-gray, faintly tinged with yellow and smoother than in most of the hickories, yet broken into thin plate-like scales. The winter buds are compressed, scurfy, and of a bright yellow color.
The leaves are alternate, compound, from 6 to 10 inches long, and composed of from 7 to 11 leaflets. The individual leaflets are smaller and more slender than those of the other hickories.
The flowers are of two kinds on the same tree; the staminate in long pendulous green catkins, the pistillate in 2 to 5 flowered spikes, ½ inch long, brown-hairy. The fruit is about 1 inch long and thin-husked, while the nut is usually thin-shelled and brittle, and the kernel very bitter.
The wood is hard, strong and heavy, reddish-brown in color. From this last fact it gets its local name of red hickory. It is said to be somewhat inferior to the other hickories, but is used for the same purposes.
PECAN Carya illinoensis (Wang.) K. Koch
(Carya pecan (Marsh.) E. & G.)
THE pecan is a river-bottom tree found in southern Illinois extending its range northward to Adams, Peoria, Fayette and Lawrence counties. The tree is the largest of the hickories, attaining heights of over 100 feet and, when in the open, forming a large rounded top of symmetrical shape. It makes an excellent shade tree and is also planted in orchards for its nuts. The outer bark is rough, hard, tight, but broken into scales; on the limbs, it is smooth at first but later tends to scale or divide as the bark grows old.
