It would seem that the shape of the nut enclosed within the husk might be predetermined by examination of the husk itself. The obovate husk shape could most frequently be depended on to produce either elliptical or obovate nuts but this was not an absolute certainty. The thickness of the husk effectively concealed the true shape of the nut beneath; the thinnest husks most nearly conforming to the true nut shape.
The size of the mature shagbark hickory nut and husk ranged from as small as one inch in a tree which had a seed barely 3/8" wide to as large as 2-1/4 inches. The size of husk and nut is variable and adjacent trees which may have developed from the same parent seldom have similar nuts in the area examined.
The nut itself exhibited the greatest variability of all features examined on the test trees. These trees exhibited striking dissimilarities in:
(1) nut size (2) nut shape (3) shell color (4) thickness of shell (5) sweetness or palatability of nutmeat.
One tree was discovered with a nut which might have caused a taxonomist to coin the name Carya ovata var. microcarpa due to the very small dimensions of about 3/8 x 3/8 x 3/4 inches in width, thickness and depth. Even the squirrels of the area did not feel that this tree deserved their attention The largest nut obtained had overall dimensions of 1 x 3/4 x 1 inches in width, thickness and depth. The majority of average sized nuts were roughly 3/4 x 1/2 x 3/4 inches.
The nut shapes have fallen into a general pattern which include the following normal types:
Type A—The normal 4 angled nut, nearly rectangular in cross section
(Fig. 6a).
Type B—An elliptical form, nearly oval in cross section (Fig. 6b).
Type C—A smooth oval nut, oval or elliptical in cross section (Fig. 6c).
Type D—An obovate nut, oval to angled in cross section (Fig. 6d).