middle and free at one or both ends, giving the trunk a characteristic appearance, Terminal buds ovoid, obtuse, ½ to ¾ inch long, with ten to twelve imbricated scales; outer scales persistent during winter, falling a little before the unfolding of the leaves, triangular, keeled, apiculate or contracted ras long points, dark-brown, pubescent; inner scales downy, enlarging to 2 or 3 inches long, as the bud opens. Lateral buds about 4 inch long, with four to five scales visible externally. Branchlets purplish-grey, covered with brown stellate hairs, scattered below, denser nearer the tip, and with a few yellow glands; base of the shoot girt with a dense ring of pubescence. Leaves (Plate 203, Fig. 1) 8 to 14 inches long. Leaflets, five, upper three obovate, lower pair ovate, all shortly acuminate; margin ciliate with irregular tufted hairs, densest near the points of the serrations; upper surface glabrous, except for stellate hairs on the midrib and nerves; lower surface with a fine stellate pubescence, densest on the midrib and nerves; rachis stellate-pubescent.
Staminate catkins, glandular-hirsute, pedunculate in threes at the base of the year's shoot. Fruit solitary or in pairs, sub-globose, 1 to 2½ inches long, splitting freely to the base; husk dark reddish-brown, glabrous, ⅛ to ½ inch thick; nut fourangled and -ridged, white; seed large, lustrous, light-brown, sweet with an aromatic flavour.
The above description is drawn from trees cultivated in England, which resemble in all essential characters, except the imperfect development of the fruit, specimens obtained by Elwes at the Arnold Arboretum. The size and shape of the leaflets, which are always five in number, and the amount of pubescence on the branchlets and on the rachis and surface of the leaves are very variable. Two or three trees[1] of this species at Kew, which are about 25 feet high, have very large leaves which turn a brilliant yellow in autumn. Another tree at Kew, which was labelled Carya alba, differs from all other specimens which I have seen, as follows:— Branchlets and leaf-rachis almost glabrous, only showing when young a few stellate hairs. Leaflets, five, lanceolate, narrow, long-acuminate, nearly glabrous, with only a few stellate hairs, confined on the upper surface to the midrib, and scattered over the lower surface; margin non-ciliate. Buds, as in the typical form, but pointed and smaller. This tree, which is about 30 feet high, has very smooth bark, and is growing very vigorously. It is probably a glabrous form of Carya alba, and may possibly be Hicoria borealis, Ashe,[2] which grows in Michigan and Southern Ontario. (A.H.)
The Shagbark, according to Sargent, is widely distributed from the St. Lawrence valley near Montreal, along the northern shores of Lakes Erie and Ontario, west to South-Eastern Nebraska, and south throughout the Middle States and along the Appalachian mountains to Western Florida, Northern Alabama, Eastern Texas, and Central Kansas.
It attains its largest size in the Southern Alleghanies and in the lower Ohio basin, the largest trees recorded, one of which is figured in Garden and Forest, ii.
- ↑ These have been labelled C. tomentosa, from which they differ in having five-foliolate non-fragrant leaves; and are the trees referred to in Gard. Chron. xxviii, 295 (1900).
- ↑ Ashe, Notes on Hickories, 1896; Britton and Brown, Illust. Flora N. United States, iii, 512, fig. 1156 b (1898). This form is not recognised by Sargent as a distinct species.
