Hicoria ovata, Britton.
Shagbark. Shagbark or Shellbark Hickory. Walnut.
Habitat and Range.—In various soils and situations, fertile slopes, brooksides, rocky hills.
Valley of the St. Lawrence.
Maine,—along or near the coast as far north as Harpswell (Cumberland county); New Hampshire,—common as far north as Lake Winnepesaukee; Vermont,—occasional along the Connecticut to Windsor, rather common in the Champlain valley and along the western slopes of the Green mountains; Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut,—common.
South to Delaware and along the mountains to Florida; west to Minnesota, Kansas, Indian territory, and Texas.
Habit.—The tallest of the hickories and proportionally the most slender, from 50 to 75 feet in height, and not more than 2 feet in trunk diameter; rising to a great height in the Ohio and Indiana river bottoms. The trunk, shaggy in old trees, rises with nearly uniform diameter to the point of furcation, throwing out rather small branches of unequal length and irregularly disposed, forming an oblong or rounded head with frequent gaps in the continuity of the foliage.
Bark.—Trunk in young trees and in the smaller branches ash-gray, smoothish to seamy; in old trees, extremely characteristic, usually shaggy, the outer layers separating into long, narrow, unequal plates, free at one or both ends, easily detachable; branchlets smooth and gray, with conspicuous leaf-scars; season's shoots stout, more or less downy, numerous-dotted.
Winter Buds and Leaves.—Buds tomentose, ovate to oblong, terminal buds large, much swollen before expanding; inner scales numerous, purplish-fringed, downy, enlarging to 5-6 inches in length as the leaves unfold. Leaves pinnately compound, alternate, 12-20 inches long; petiole short, rough, and somewhat swollen at base; stipules none; leaflets usually 5, sometimes 3 or 7, 3-7 inches long, dark green above, yellowish-green and downy beneath when young, the three upper large, obovate to lanceolate, the two lower much smaller, oblong to oblong-lanceolate, all finely serrate and sharp-pointed; base obtuse, rounded or acute, mostly inequilateral; nearly sessile save the odd leaflet; stipels none.
Inflorescence.—May. Sterile and fertile flowers on the same tree, appearing when the leaves are fully grown,—sterile at the base of the season's shoots, in slender, green, pendulous catkins, 4-6 inches long, usually in threes, branching umbel-like from a common peduncle; flower-scales 3-parted, the middle lobe much longer than the other two, linear, tipped with long bristles; calyx adnate to scale; stamens mostly in fours, anthers yellow, bearded at the tip: fertile flowers single or clustered on peduncles at the ends of the season's shoots; calyx 4-toothed, hairy, adherent to ovary; corolla none; stigmas 2, large, fringed.