in the moister valleys and ravines up to the region of the silver fir, at altitudes varying between 2200 and 4300 feet. Small woods of walnut, undoubtedly wild,[1] occur in Bosnia and Servia, especially on the north slopes of mountains rich in springs. It ascends in Herzegovina to 2400 feet, in southern Servia to 1400 feet, and in Albania to 2200 feet. Velenovsky[2] considers it to be truly wild in the Rhodope mountains. According to Radde[3] it occurs in the Caucasus, from the sea-level to 4500 feet altitude; also in Ghilan in North Persia. According to Meakin,[4] it is met with wild in the mountains not far from Bokhara. There are wild specimens at Kew from Armenia. According to Aitchison it is wild in Afghanistan, at 7000 to 9000 feet, and also in the Kuram valley. It occurs in the temperate Himalayas and Ladak, at altitudes of 3000 to 10,000 feet from Kashmir and Nubra eastward. Kurz met with it in the Shan Hills in Burma. It is cultivated throughout China, and appears to be indigenous in North China and Japan;[5] but other species of Juglans are much commoner in the wild state throughout China and Japan.
We are indebted to Sir W. Thiselton Dyer for the following:—
"The walnut found its western natural limit in Greece, but early made its way into Italy. Its classical name Juglans is Jovis glans, but in poetry it is always Nux. Virgil's ramos curvabit olentes hits off the acrid smell of the foliage. 'The nuts were thrown at weddings, as Virgil tells us, sparge marite nuces, because, amongst other reasons, Pliny says, they made the maximum of noise.
"Relinquere nuces was to put away childish things: so Catullus, da nuces pueris iners. The green rind enclosing the nut contains a dye used to darken the hair, the viridi tincta cortice nucis of Tibullus, in modern times more often the skin."
The walnut is extensively cultivated in France, Germany (except in the north where it ripens fruit rarely), and throughout southern Europe. It is cultivated chiefly in the region of the beech, as in Hungary up to 2160 feet, on the southern slopes of the Alps up to 3800 feet, in the Vosges up to 2200 feet. In Norway it is grown on the west coast as far north as Trondhjem, where it has reached a height of 30 feet, and in very favourable summers ripens fruit. Many other localities are mentioned by Schubeler, vol. ii. pp. 429–431. In Sweden it exists near Stockholm, and in Scania, at Cimbrishamn (55° 30'), Linnæus measured, in 1749, a tree 60 feet high. (A.H.)
Propagation and Cultivation
If the walnut is wanted as a fruit-bearing tree it is better to procure from a nurseryman grafted or budded trees of some of the large-fruited, thin-shelled sorts, which have been raised in France; and which grow best in the south and east of
- ↑ Beck von Mannagetta, Vegetationsverhält. Illyrischen Ländern, 219 (1901).
- ↑ Flora Bulgarica, 512 (1891).
- ↑ Pflanzenverbreitung in Kaukasusländern, 170, 182.
- ↑ Russian Turkestan, 23 (1903).
- ↑ It is included as a wild plant in Japan by Matsumura in Shokubutsu Mei-I, 155 (1895); but Sargent in his Forest Flora of Japan, p. 60, says, "It is occasionally cultivated in the neighbourhood of temples and as a fruit tree; but we saw no evidence of its being anywhere indigenous, and it is probable that it was introduced from Northern China, where one form of this tree apparently grows naturally."
