pubescent, enlarging to 1 to 1½ inch long, as the bud unfolds. Lateral buds much smaller, with 4 scales visible externally. Branchlets densely covered with stellate hairs and shining glands, without any definite ring of pubescence at the base of the shoot. Leaves (Plate 203, Fig. 3) very fragrant, eight to twenty inches long. Leaflets seven or nine, upper three obovate, lower pairs ovate; acuminate; margin regularly ciliate; upper surface glabrous, except for stellate hairs on the midrib, and with minute shining glands; lower surface covered with scattered stellate pubescence and numerous glands; nerves in the upper pair of lateral leaflets usually less than 20 pairs; rachis with stellate pubescence and shining glands.
Staminate catkins, pubescent, pedunculate in threes at the base of the current year's shoot. Fruit, single or in pairs, globose, 1 to 2 inches long; husk hard, thick, glandular, splitting to the middle or nearly to the base; nut four-ridged near the top, thick-shelled; seed small, dark brown, lustrous, sweet. (A.H.)
This species has a distribution similar to that of the shag-bark and bitternut; but is comparatively rare in the north, though it is found in Southern Ontario. It commonly grows on poor and sandy soil, and is the only hickory in the maritime pine-belt of the Southern States. It does not usually exceed 60 feet in height, except in the rich valleys of the Southern Alleghany Mountains and in Missouri and Arkansas. Ridgway records a tree in Southern Indiana 112 feet by 10½ feet, and says it is a common species in upland woods, being known as the black- or white-heart hickory. Its name of mockernut is derived from the thickness of the shell and the smallness of the kernel of the fruit, which makes it hardly worth eating. The fruit and leaves have a strong fragrant resinous smell, not present in the other species.
Loudon states that this species was "introduced in?1766"; but he does not seem to have known of any trees in cultivation in 1838. This hickory is extremely rare, the finest specimen that we know of being one at Golden Grove, Carmarthenshire, which is 50 feet high by 4 feet in girth. It is supposed to have been planted in 1865. Near the Azalea Garden at Kew there is a fine healthy young tree, procured in 1872 from Booth's Nursery, near Hamburg, and now 46 feet high by 2½ feet in girth, remarkable for its fine large foliage, the fragrance of which is especially strong and can be perceived at a distance in the early morning. There are small trees growing at Tortworth and Hildenley. (H.J.E.)
Cultivation of the Hickories
Though so long introduced into cultivation, and at one time much more commonly planted than at present, no species of hickory has as yet established a reputation which justifies the hope that it may become a tree of real economic importance in this country. As ornamental trees the hickories are not equal either in size or in beauty to others which can be more easily grown, and though at least three of the species may be planted with good hopes of success, as an interesting addition to parks and pleasure grounds, yet their cultural peculiarities must be carefully studied before doing so.
