Mockernut White-heart Hickory Walnut

Habitat and Range.--In various soils; woods, dry, rocky ridges, mountain

slopes.



Niagara peninsula and westward.



Maine and Vermont,--not reported; New Hampshire,--sparingly along the

coast; Massachusetts,--rather common eastward; Rhode Island and

Connecticut,--common.



South to Florida, ascending 3500 feet in Virginia; west to Kansas,

Nebraska, Missouri, Indian territory, and Texas.



=Habit.=--A tall and rather slender tree, 50-70 feet high, with a

diameter above the swell of the roots of 2-3 feet; attaining much

greater dimensions south and west; trunk erect, not shaggy, separating

into a few rather large limbs and sending out its upper branches at a

sharp angle, forming a handsome, wide-spreading, pyramidal head.



=Bark.=--Bark of trunk dark gray, thick, hard, close, and rough,

becoming narrow-rugged-furrowed; crinkly on small trunks and branches;

leaf-scars prominent; season's shoots stout, brown, downy or dusty

puberulent, dotted, resinous-scented.



=Winter Buds and Leaves.=--Buds large, yellowish-brown, ovate, downy.

Leaves pinnately compound, alternate, 15-20 inches long; rachis large,

downy, swollen at the base; stipules none; leaflets 7-9, opposite,

large, yellowish-green and smooth above, beneath paler and thick-downy,

at least when young, turning to a clear yellow or russet brown in

autumn, the three upper obovate, the two lower ovate, all the leaflets

slightly serrate or entire, pointed, base acute to rounded, nearly

sessile except the odd one. Aromatic when bruised.



=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, pendulous, downy catkins, 4-8 inches long,

usually in threes, branching umbel-like from a common peduncle; scales

3-lobed, hairy; calyx adnate; stamens 4 or 5, anthers red, bearded at

the tip: fertile flowers on peduncles at the end of the season's shoots;

calyx toothed, hairy, adherent to ovary; corolla none; stigmas 2, hairy.



=Fruit.=--October. Generally sessile on terminal peduncles, single or in

pairs, as large or larger than the fruit of the shagbark, or as small as

that of the pignut, oblong-globose to globose: husk hard and thick,

separating in 4 segments nearly to the base, strong-scented: nut

globular, 4-ridged near the top, thick-shelled: kernel usually small,

sweet, edible. The superior size of the fruit and the smallness of the

kernel probably give rise to the common name, mockernut.



=Horticultural Value.=--Hardy throughout New England; prefers a rich,

well-drained soil, but grows well in rocky, ledgy, exposed

situations, and is seldom disfigured by insect enemies. Young trees have

large, deep roots, and are difficult to transplant successfully unless

they have been frequently transplanted in nurseries, from which,

however, they are seldom obtainable. Propagated from seed.






1. Winter buds.

2. Flowering branch.

3. Sterile flower, front view.

4. Sterile flower, side view.

5. Sterile flower, top view.

6. Fertile flower, side view.

7. Fruiting branch.





=Carya porcina, Nutt.=



Hicoria glabra, Britton.