Range: Southern Ontario across to central Minnesota, south to eastern Texas, east to north-central Florida.
Distinguishing Features: Bitternut Hickory is easily recognized by its slender, mustard-yellow buds. It differs further from the Water Hickory by its rounded fruits.
PIGNUT HICKORY
Carya glabra (Mill.) Sweet
Growth Form: Medium tree up to 75 feet tall; trunk diameter up to 2 feet; crown oblong or obovoid, with many small, spreading branchlets; trunk straight, columnar, sometimes branching fairly low to the ground.
Bark: Light gray to black, not scaly or peeling off into shreds, at maturity furrowed and ridged.
Twigs: Slender, brown or gray, shiny, smooth, tough, usually with lenticels; leaf scars alternate, shield-shaped or 3-lobed, scarcely elevated, usually with several bundle traces.
Buds: More or less rounded but coming to a short point at the tip, tan or grayish, the outermost scales tipped with a few small hairs, never with small yellow dots, the inner scales hairy all along the edges, up to ½ inch long.
Leaves: Alternate, pinnately compound, with usually 5, sometimes 7 leaflets; leaflets lance-shaped, pointed at the tip, tapering at the bottom, toothed along the edges, green and smooth on the upper surface, green and smooth or sometimes hairy on the veins on the lower surface, up to 5 inches long and up to 2 inches broad, the upper three leaflets larger than the lower two.
Flowers: Staminate and pistillate borne separately, but on the same tree, appearing after the leaves have begun to expand, minute, without petals, the staminate in slender, drooping catkins, the pistillate in groups of 1-3.