CARYA
- Carya,! Nuttall, Gen. Am. ii. 220 (1818); Bentham et Hooker, Gen. Pl. iii. 398 (1880).
- Scoria, Rafinesque, Med. Repos. New York, v. 352 (1808).
- Hicorius, Rafinesque, Fl. Ludov. 109 (1817).
- Hicoria, Rafinesque, Alsog. Am. 65 (1838).
Deciduous trees belonging to the order Juglandaceæ. Branchlets with solid continuous pith, not chambered as in Juglans and Pterocarya. Leaves alternate, compound, unequally pinnate, without stipules ; leaflets sessile or sub-sessile, serrate, penninerved.
Flowers monœcious, without petals. Staminate catkins slender, drooping, in threes on a common penduncle or clustered and sessile or subsessile, arising either from buds in the axils of the leaf-scars of the previous year’s branchlets or from the base of the current year’s shoot, and appearing after the unfolding of the leaves ; flowers numerous in the catkin; calyx two- to three-lobed, subtended by an ovate bract; stamens three to ten, filaments short. Pistillate flowers, two to ten, in a cluster or spike, terminal on a leafy branchlet of the year; ovary superior, one-celled, surrounded by a four-lobed cup-shaped involucre, formed by the union of a bract and two bracteoles ; calyx one-lobed ; stigmas two, sessile ; ovule solitary.
Fruit, a nut, enclosed in a four-valved, thickened, hard and woody involucre, four-celled at the base, two-celled at the apex, tipped by the remains of the style; seed solitary, without albumen, filling the cavity of the nut.
The cotyledons remain underground in germination, the plumule being carried by the lengthening of their petioles out of the nut, which splits into two valves. The germination resembles that of the oak, the young stem bearing at first three to eight alternate minute lanceolate scales, above which the leaves are developed. The first leaf is simple, tri-lobed, or trifoliolate ; those succeeding, about five or six in the first year, being trifoliolate ; all are serrate and stalked. The difference observed in the length of the stems, in two or three seedlings, seen at Colesborne, may not be constant for each species.”
Twelve species of hickory are distinguished by Sargent,’ all natives of North
1 The generic name, Carya, though not the first one published, has always been used in England, and is now sanctioned by the regulations drawn up by the International Congress of Botany at Vienna in 1905. Cf. Verhand. Internat. Bot. Kongress. Wien, 1905, p. 239. With regard to the specific names, I have not altered those of Nuttall, which have been long in use.
2 Rowlee and Hastings, Bot. Gaz. xxvi. 349, pl. xxix. figs. 9, 10, 12 (1898), give figures of the seedlings of C. alba and C. porcina.
3 In Trees N. Amer. 132 (1905). Ashe, in Flora South-Eastern United States, 333 (1903), raised two varieties to the rank of species, making fourteen species in all.
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