The Trees of Great Britain & Ireland/Volume 2/Juglans
JUGLANS
- Juglans, Linnæus, Gen. Pl. 291 (1737); Bentham et Hooker, Gen. Pl. iii. 398 (1880).
Decidious trees with furrowed bark. Twigs with chambered pith. Buds scaly, the lateral buds often extra-axillary or accompanied by superposed accessory buds. Leaf-scars large with three groups of bundle-traces. Leaves large, alternate, compound, imparipinnate; leaflets opposite, entire or serrate. Stipules absent.
Flowers monœcious. Male flowers numerous in pendulous catkins, which arise singly or in pairs above the leaf-scars of the preceding year's shoot, appearing in autumn and then visible as short cones covered by imbricated scales. Stamens eight to forty, in several series on the axis of a scale, which is five- to seven-lobed, the lobes representing a bract, two bracteoles and two to four perianth-lobes. Connective of the anthers clavate or dilated. Pistillate flowers few, in an erect spike terminating the current year's shoot; each flower with a three- to five-lobed or toothed involucre, composed of a bract and two bracteoles, adnate to the ovary. Inside the involucre is an epigynous and adherent four-lobed or toothed perianth. Ovary one-celled with one basal straight ovule. Style divided into two linear or lanceolate recurved spreading fimbriated plumose stigmas.
Fruit a large ovoid, globose, or pear-shaped drupe, with a fleshy, irregularly splitting husk, formed by the accrescent involucre and perianth. Nut ovoid or globose, thick-walled, longitudinally and irregularly wrinkled, two- to four-celled at the base, indehiscent or separating at last into two valves. Seed two- to four-lobed at the base, with fleshy cotyledons, which remain within the shell in germination.
About thirteen species of Juglans have been described; and there are two or three unnamed and little-known species in tropical South America. Of the described species three[1] confined to Mexico, one[2] a native of the Antilles, and the Californian walnut[3] have not yet been introduced, and will not be dealt with in the following account.[4]
Plate 73 illustrates the leaves, branchlets, and leaf-scars of the species in cultivation.
Key to the Species of Juglans in Cultivation
I. Leaflets not serrate; usually entire or sinuate (Plate 73).
- 1. Juglans regia, Linnæus. Bosnia and Greece, through W. Asia and Himalayas to N. China.
- Leaf-scars deeply notched without a pubescent band on their upper edge. Leaflets 7 to 9, glabrous beneath except for inconspicuous axil tufts.
II. Leaflets serrate. Leaf-scars without a pubescent band on their upper edge.
* Leaflets glabrous beneath, except for the axil tufts.
- 2. Juglans regia x nigra. Two forms: Juglans Vilmoriniana, Carriére, and Juglans pyriformis, Carrière.
- Leaflets 11 to 13, with fine shallow serrations.
** Leaflets pubescent beneath.
- 3. Juglans rupestris, Engelmann. Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, Mexico.
- Leaflets small, 7 to 15, ovate or lanceolate, never oblong, green beneath. Young shoots glandular-pubescent.
- 4. Juglans nigra, Linnæus. Canada and United States, east of the Rocky Mountains.
- Leaflets large, 15 to 19, ovate-oblong with long-acuminate apex, pale beneath. Young shoots glandular-pubescent.
- 5. Juglans stenocarpa, Maximowicz. Manchuria.
- Leaflets large, 11 to 13; all oblong, except the terminal one which is broadly obovate, pale beneath. Young shoots glabrous.
- 6. Juglans cinerea, Linnæus. Canada and United States, east of the Rocky Mountains.
- Leaf-scars semicircular, the upper edge straight and scarcely notched. Leaflets, 11 to 13, oblong; serrations fine and directed outwards.
- 7. Juglans Sieboldiana,[5] Maximowicz. Japan, Saghalien.
- Leaf-scars obcordate, 3-lobed, notched above. Leaflets, 13 to 15, oblong; serrations shallow, irregular, directed forwards; base rounded and unequal.
- 8. Juglans mandshurica,[5] Maximowicz. Manchuria, Korea, China.
- Leaflets and leaf-scars practically indistinguishable from those of the last species, though the leaflets are usually longer-acuminate. Fruit, however, remarkably distinct. See detailed description.
- 9. Juglans cordiformis,[5] Maximowicz. Japan.
- Leaf-scars and leaflets closely resembling those of J. Sieboldiana, the leaflets however, fewer (11 to 13) and with a cordate base.
JUGLANS REGIA, Common Walnut
- Juglans regia, Linnæus, Sp. Pl. 997 (1753); Loudon, Arb. et Frut. Brit. iii. 1421 (1838).
A deciduous tree, attaining 100 feet in height and 15 to 18 feet in girth. Bark smooth and silvery grey in young trees, becoming ultimately more or less deeply fissured.
Leaves large, up to 10 inches long, coriaceous, of five to nine (rarely as many as thirteen) leaflets, sub-opposite or opposite, the terminal leaflet stalked, the others subsessile; elliptic, long-ovate or obovate, shortly acuminate at the apex, tapering and unequal at the base, glabrous on both surfaces, except for inconspicuous tufts of pubescence in the axils of the nerves on the lower surface; dark green above, paler beneath, entire or slightly sinuate in margin; exhaling an aromatic odour. Venation pinnate, with ten to fourteen pairs of lateral nerves, which run nearly straight to near the margin, where they curve forwards and join with the next vein. The leaflets diminish in size from the apex to the base of the leaf. Rachis glabrous, terminal leaflet not articulated. Young shoots glabrous, with yellow sessile glands and white inconspicuous lenticels.
Male catkins arising singly or in pairs (one above the other) above the leaf-scars of the previous year's shoots, green, two to five inches long, sessile, pendulous, thickly cylindrical and densely flowered; flowers with stalked bracts, two to five perianth leaves and two bracteoles; stamens ten to twenty; anthers oblong, apiculate. Female flowers, one to four, at the apex of the young shoots, green, with usually purple stigmas; involucre minute, indistinctly four-toothed; perianth green, with four linear-lanceolate divisions.
Fruit globular, about two inches in diameter; pericarp green, smooth, glandular-dotted, coriaceous, and very aromatic, splitting irregularly when mature. Nut very variable in shape, wrinkled and irregularly furrowed, thin- or thick-shelled; divided interiorly by two thin dissepiments into four incomplete cells; one dissepiment separating the two cotyledons, the other dissepiment dividing them into two lobes. The structure of the fruit of the walnut is very complicated, and the reader is referred for further details to Lubbock's paper[6] on the fruit and seed of the Juglandeæ.
The common walnut, according to Kerner,[7] is truly monœcious, the stigmas, however, ripening several days before the pollen is shed from the anthers.[8] The unripe male catkins have the flowers crowded together in a short thick spike directed upwards. As soon as the pollen develops the spike elongates to three or four times its former length and becomes loose and pendulous, the flowers separating from one another. The pollen then falls into a depression on the side of the neighbouring flower below, from which it is shaken out by the wind and carried to neighbouring branches of the tree, where it alights on the stigmas of the female flowers.
Seedling[9]
The cotyledons are large, fleshy, obovate, bi-lobed and crumpled, filling the cavity of the seed, from which they do not emerge on germination, but remain underground. The primary root makes its exit by the apex of the nut, and becomes stout and flexuose, giving off a few lateral fibres. The caulicle is very short, stout, and woody. Young stem, erect, compressed, glabrous, greenish, and covered with lenticels. The first four pairs of leaves are mere scales, opposite or sub-opposite on the stem. The ninth leaf is foliaceous, and consists of three leaflets, the terminal one large, obovate or elliptical, and cuspidate, the lateral ones small, oblong and alternate. The next leaf is five-foliolate; the terminal leaflet, oblong-obovate; the middle pair ovate, acuminate, oblique at the base, unequal, and sub-opposite; the basal pair small, ovate, oblique, and unequal. The last leaf is like it, or bears only four leaflets. All these primary leaflets are serrate in margin, and more acuminate than those of the adult plant, which are entire. In these respects they resemble the adult leaves of Carya or other species of Juglans.[10]
Identification
The common walnut is distinguishable in summer from all the other species by its glabrous, entire, few leaflets. In winter the following characters are available:— Twigs stout, glabrous,[11] shining, greenish or grey, with scattered longitudinal lenticels. Leaf-scars on prominent pulvini, broadly obcordate, the upper margin deeply notched in the centre and not surmounted by a band of pubescence; bundle-dots in three groups. Pith large, white or buff in colour, with wide chambers. Terminal bud ovoid, obtuse at the apex, with four external grey tomentose scales in two valvate pairs, the scales not lobed at their apex and merely representing leaf-bases. In many cases, as in slow-growing old trees, the true terminal bud is aborted on most of the branchlets, and its scar marks the end of the twigs. Lateral buds small, arising at an angle of 45°, globose, the two outer scales usually concealing the inner ones, pubescent at first, but ultimately becoming glabrous. Superposed lateral buds occur only rarely.
Varieties
Two distinct geographical forms are known:—
(a) typica, in Europe, Asia Minor, Persia, and the Himalayas. Leaves elliptic; nuts ovoid-globose with thin septa.
(b) sinensis, C. DC. in Ann. Sc. Nat. 4 Sér. xviii. 33, figs. 38, 39. North China and Japan. Leaves oval or ovate. Nut globose, scarcely apiculate at the apex, sparingly wrinkled; septa thick and bony.
A large number of varieties have arisen in cultivation.
1. Var. pendula. Tree, pendulous in habit.
2. Var. præparturiens. A bushy shrub, producing fruit at an early period, sometimes when only two or three years old. According to Carrière[12] it was obtained from seed by Louis Chatenay, a nurseryman at Doué-la-Fontaine, about the year 1830, the first mention of it being in Ann. Soc. d' Hort. Paris, 1840, p. 741. M. Chatenay found in the midst of a number of seedlings of walnuts three years old a single individual which bore fruit. This variety was put into commerce by M. Janin of Paris. According to Carrière, when the seeds of it are sown, different forms are produced, from young plants which bear fruit in their second year up to others which only produce fruit at an advanced age. The plants are also variable in size. The nuts are generally thin-shelled and small, but good in quality.
3. Var. præcox. Comes into flower and fruit a fortnight earlier than the common kind.
4. Var. serotina, Desfontaines. This variety flowers very late, and is recommended in localities liable to spring frosts. It is said[13] that of this variety, when sown, only three per cent came true, and flowered late in the season.
5. Var. monophylla. Leaves simple or trifoliolate. A small tree of this kind, which bears both simple and trifoliolate leaves, the basal pair of leaflets being very small, is growing at Bayfordbury, the residence of Mr. H. Clinton Baker.
6. Var. rotundifolia. Leaflets oval.
7. Var. serratifolia.[14] Leaves serrate. There is a specimen in the Kew herbarium from a tree in Germany, all the leaves of which were distantly serrate in margin. The leaves of young seedlings are always serrate; and this juvenile character is often retained in some walnut trees up to a considerable age.
8. Var. laciniata, Loudon. Leaves very deeply cut. The foliage of this variety is light and feathery, much more so than that of the common walnut, and is retained till late in the autumn. A fine specimen was reported in 1884 to be growing at Bicton.[15] Elwes has seen only three trees of this form, of which the largest, growing on a lawn at Westonbirt, was 30 to 40 feet high. Another was at Melbury, and a third, of no great size, at Poltalloch in Argyllshire.
9. Var. heterophylla. Leaflets variable, some of the ordinary form, others irregularly cut.
10. Var. variegata.[16] Leaflets with white margins.
11. A tree was growing in 1890 at Chawton Park, Alton, Hampshire, of which specimens with extremely narrow leaflets were sent to Kew.
The number of varieties of the walnut in cultivation, as regards the shape, colour, and other qualities of the fruit, is very great; but a detailed description of these does not come within the scope of our work. The most remarkable is the huskless walnut[17] of North China, which is cultivated in the mountains to the northwest of Peking. In this curious form the husk is almost wanting, being very thin and irregular. In var. racemosa the fruits are numerous, fifteen to twenty-four, and are set close together on the peduncle. In var. maxima, Loudon (var. macrocarpa), the fruits are very large. The nuts are elongated and very narrow in var. elongata (var. Bartheriana[18]); very sharp-pointed at both ends in var. rostrata; and have very thin shells in var. tenera,[19] Loudon (var. fragilis). The kernel of the nut is bright red in var. rubra (var. rubrocarpa).[20]
Hybrids
I. Juglans regia x nigra. Two forms of this are well known in cultivation; they differ mainly in the character of the fruit.
1. Juglans Vilmoriniana, Carrière, Rev. Hort. 1863, p. 30. Young shoots glabrous. Leaf-scars obcordate, three-lobed, deeply notched above. Leaflets eleven to thirteen, ovate-lanceolate, sub-sessile, apex acuminate, base rounded or tapering; serrations fine and shallow, directed forwards; lower surface green and glabrous, except for conspicuous tufts of pubescence in the axils of the main veins. Rachis glabrous in the upper leaves of the shoot, pubescent towards its base in the lower leaves. Fruit with the thick husk of J. nigra. Nut smooth, globose, thicker shelled and more deeply furrowed than that of the common walnut.
In Garden and Forest, iv. 51 (1891), M.M. de Vilmorin gives particulars of the original tree in his garden at Verrières les Buisson, near Paris, and an excellent illustration of it in winter. He says that it was planted about 86 years previously as a young seedling by his grandfather as a memorial of the birth of his eldest son. Nothing certain is known of its origin, though it was supposed by Dr. Engelmann to be a hybrid, between the European and the black walnut. The characters of the bark, branchlets, and buds are intermediate; the leaves resemble those of J. regia more than those of J. nigra. The fruit, which is not produced every year, and never in quantity, is figured, and resembles most that of the black walnut. Of the few seedlings which have been raised from it one is growing beautifully in the Arboretum at Segrez, and produces fertile nuts. All the seedlings have grown well when planted in deep sandy soil mixed with clay. The tree at Verrières was seen by Elwes in 1905, and measured 95 feet high by 10 feet in girth, with a bole about 16 feet long, The habit of the tree was considered by him to resemble the black walnut rather than the common species.
There are young trees of J. Vilmoriniana growing at Kew, and one has been recently sent to Colesborne by M. de Vilmorin.
2. Juglans pyriformis, Carrière, loc. cit. 28, figs. 4 to 9. Garden, L. 478, fig. (1896).
Carrière states that this tree arose from a cross between J. regia and J. nigra. The leaves are identical with those of J. Vilmoriniana. The young shoots differ in having a glandular pubescence. The fruits are long-stalked and pear-shaped, but otherwise closely resemble those of J. nigra. Young trees of this kind are in cultivation at Kew.
3. Other hybrids between these species have been described. One mentioned by Sargent was an immense tree, found in 1888 by Prof. Rothrock on the Rowe Farm on the north bank of the Lower James River, Virginia. It is described as having the habit, foliage, and general appearance of J. regia, but producing a nut not unlike that of the black walnut, though longer and less deeply sculptured. The nut is exactly like that of Juglans regia gibbosa, Carrière,[21] which was raised by a nurseryman at Fontenay-aux-Roses in 1848.
De Candolle also described,[22] as Juglans regia intermedia, a tree which was found at the Trianon, and supposed to be a cross between the common and black walnuts. M.C. de Candolle informed Elwes that a similar hybrid exists at Geneva, and that its seedlings have characters intermediate between the two parents.
There are specimens at Kew, which were sent by Mr. E. Lyon in 1901 from Hurley, Marlow, where there is a fine old tree of Juglans nigra, from the seed of which plants were raised, which are apparently intermediate between that species and the common walnut.
II. Juglans regia x cinerea. Juglans alata, Carrière,[23] Rev, Hort. 1865, p. 447. This is described as having young shoots pubescent: leaflets seven to nine, with the end leaflet stalked, the others subsessile; all oval or elliptic-lanceolate, abruptly acuminate, obscurely and remotely serrate, pubescent on both surfaces: rachis shortly pubescent. Three trees, presumably of this hybrid, have been observed near Boston in the United States; and a description and figure of them are given in Garden and Forest, 1894, p. 435, fig. 69.
III. Juglans regia x californica. A remarkable hybrid between the common walnut and the Californian wild species, has been obtained by Luther Burbank, who names it "paradox."[24]
Distribution
The common walnut has a very wide distribution, occurring wild in Europe in Greece, Bosnia, Servia, Herzegovina, Albania, and Bulgaria; and extending eastward through Asia Minor, the Caucasus, Persia, and the Himalayas to Burma and North China and Japan. Its occurrence as an indigenous plant in Greece was first demonstrated by Heldreich,[25] who found it growing wild in Ætolia at Korax, in Phthiotis on the Œta and Kukkos mountains, and in Eurytania on Veluchi, Chelidoni, etc. It grows wild in Greece in mixture with oaks and chestnuts in great quantity, especially 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,[26] 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[27] considers it to be truly wild in the Rhodope mountains. According to Radde[28] it occurs in the Caucasus, from the sea-level to 4500 feet altitude; also in Ghilan in North Persia. According to Meakin,[29] 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;[30] 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 England. The process of budding or grafting them is fully described by Loudon, p. 1431, and need not be repeated here.
If, however, walnuts are to be planted for timber or ornament, it is far better to raise them from nuts, which may be sown as soon as they are ripe, if they can be protected from mice and vermin; or kept in sand until February, when they should be sown two to three inches deep in rich light soil, which will encourage the production of fibrous roots at an early period. As the large strong tap-root makes the tree difficult to transplant, it should be undercut with a spade about six inches below the soil in the first year, or the nut may be allowed to germinate before sowing and the end of the root pinched off. If this is not done they must be carefully transplanted in March, and protected from late spring frost as much as possible until they have made stems four to six feet high. For though the walnut is one of the latest trees to come into leaf, none is more tender as regards spring frost, and as it does not bear pruning well and has a natural tendency to form branches rather than a clean stem, it is important that the trees should be carefully trained when young.
It is now much less planted than formerly, and the wood is not so much valued by country timber merchants as it ought to be, but there is no reason why it should not be treated as a forest tree on suitable soils, and drawn up among other trees with the object of growing clean timber; though I consider it inferior to the black walnut in this respect. It is evidently a lover of a warm soil and climate, and though on good limestone soil or deep loam resting on chalk it grows fast and to a great size, it should not be planted on heavy clay, on poor sand, or in exposed windy situations.
The walnut is very seldom blown down on account of its strong roots, and I have never seen one struck by lightning. It does not reach a very great age; so far as I know, 200 years is about the limit of its life, and many trees become hollow or decayed before attaining as much as this.
The only place where I have seen walnuts self-sown in England is at Holkham, where, in the Triangle plantation, are several trees, one 17 feet high, in a fairly thick plantation of larch and Scots pine on light sandy soil. They are 100 to 150 yards distant from the parent tree, the nuts having probably been carried by squirrels or rooks. On the sandhills at the same place I saw a self-sown tree five to six feet high, and on the roadside near Colesborne a young tree has sprung up from a nut dropped by a passer-by.
Mr. E. Kay Robinson[31] mentions the occurrence of young walnut trees amidst clumps of other large trees, due to the carrying away by rooks of the fruit from an old walnut tree in a garden near by. He has kindly sent us a photograph of a walnut tree growing in a field at Warham, near Wells, Norfolk, which had evidently been deposited by a rook, as the young tree in its growth had thrust up the roots of an old willow tree, amongst which it had grown.
Remarkable Trees
Though there are many very fine walnuts scattered through the southern half of England I cannot say where the largest tree actually is. Nothing that I know of now living equals a tree recorded by Mr. W. Forbes,[32] which grew on the estate of Sir Charles Isham at Lamport Hall, Northamptonshire, and was sold to Messrs. Westley Richards, gunmakers of Birmingham. According to the measurements given, this tree contained 816 cubic feet of sound wood, of which the butt, measuring 12 feet by 18 feet in girth, contained 243 feet and one limb 108 feet.
A magnificent tree, said to have been the largest in England, grew at Cothelstone, near Bishops Lydeard, Somersetshire, which Loudon records as being 64 feet high and 6½ feet in diameter,[33] but I am informed by Mr. E.V. Trepplin, agent to Viscount Portman, that it was blown down some years ago.
No tree mentioned by Loudon equals the one of which I give a figure (Plate 74), which grows in front of the house at Barrington Park, near Burford, Oxfordshire, the property of Mr. E. C. Wingfield, on an oolite formation. This tree measured in 1903, 80 to 85 feet in height by 17 feet in girth, and has a fine bole and a very burry trunk. There are two other splendid walnuts in this park nearly as tall and over 15 feet in girth, and others have been cut down of which the timber, when cut up in London, was considered by Mr. A. Howard equal in colour and figure to Italian walnut. At the Moot, Downton, Wilts, the residence of my old friend Mr. Elias P. Squarey, are four fine walnut trees, one of which was said by Mr. D. Watney to be the largest he had seen during his long experience as a valuer, and estimated to contain over 400 feet. It measures 17 feet 2 inches in girth, with a short butt dividing into four big limbs which run up to about 80 feet in height. Another is the tallest walnut I have ever seen or heard of, and measured in 1903 about 100 (perhaps more) feet high by 13 feet in girth.
In the village street of Bossington, Somersetshire, I was shown by Mr. S.F. Luttrell of Dunster Castle, a very picturesque old gnarled walnut tree which at 5 feet is 17 feet in girth, but the roots are so spreading that the trunk, measured close to the ground and following the sinuosities, is 35 feet round. A walnut of apparently no great age in a field at Cobham village in Kent measured in 1905 about 70 feet by 13 feet, and the branches spread over a circumference of 99 paces.
An avenue of walnuts is seldom planted in England, but at Moor Court, Herefordshire, there is a short one which from an illustration in the Gardeners' Chronicle of February 6, 1875, seems very effective. They are 60 to 70 feet high and 10 to 12 in girth.
At Sudeley, Gloucestershire, the seat of Mr. H. Dent Brocklehurst, there are in a line before the Castle four beautiful trees of great age, the largest measuring 90 feet by 14 feet, and in Rendcombe Park near the Temple there is a fine old tree about 80 feet by 15 feet whose branches cover an area 105 paces in circumference.
Plate 74.
WALNUT AT BARRINGTON PARK
Plate 75.
WALNUT AT GORDON CASTLE
To Face Supplementary Plate No. 366.
WALNUT AT CAM-YR-ALYN PARK
The magnificent Walnut tree here represented was unknown to us when Vol. II. was published in 1907. We are indebted to Mr. F.R.S. Balfour for its discovery, and to Mr. G. Cromar for the following particulars:—The tree stands in Cam-yr-Alyn Park, Denbighshire, the property of Wilson Sweetenham, Esq., and in 1910, when the photograph was taken by Mr. W. P. Wilkes, was about 70 ft. high, and 32½ ft. in girth. It has five main branches, which measure as follows: 9 ft. 4 in., 10 ft. 3 in., 12½ ft., 9 ft., and 11½ ft. respectively, and cover an area of 88 ft. by 80 ft. The tree is healthy, and grows on a light loam and gravelly soil, at an elevation of about 100 feet above sea-level. The water in this district is full of lime, and there is a stream about 15 yards from the tree.
Plate 366.
WALNUT AT CAM-YR-ALYN PARK
In the eastern counties there must be many fine walnuts, but the only one of which I have any exact record is a tree which was figured by Grigor[34] at Ketteringham Park, Wymondham, Norfolk, the seat of Sir M. Boileau, Bart., and is said to have been planted at the restoration of Charles II. This tree was one of the best shaped as regards its branches that has been figured, and measured in 1841 68 feet high with a girth of 12 feet.
At Rickmansworth, Herts, Sir Hugh Beevor measured in 1901 a tree 98 feet high by 11 feet 9 inches in girth, the first limb coming off at 18 feet up, the second limb at 36 feet from the ground. At Gayhurst, near Newport Pagnell, Mr. W. W. Carlile showed me a tree growing on a clayey limestone, which, though of great age, is absolutely sound and has lost hardly a branch. It measures no less than 80 feet by 17 feet, and is very perfect in shape. At Ware Park, Herts, Mr. Baker tells us of a tree 16 feet 4 inches in girth, and this seems to be a district where the walnut comes to great perfection. He showed me another of the thin-shelled French variety growing close to the bank of the Lea at Roxford, which, though much cut by frost, was 16 feet in girth.
At Castle Howard, Yorkshire, there is a large tree in the park near the stables, growing among beech and oak which have drawn it up to a height of 80 or 90 feet, though it leans very much to one side. It has a clean bole about 20 feet long by 11 feet 8 inches, dividing into two long straight clean stems, a very unusual form in this tree.
In Scotland the walnut is not so much at home as in England, but in the warmer parts of the east and in Perthshire it attains considerable dimensions. The best that I have seen myself is a tree at Gordon Castle (Plate 75) which in 1904 measured 60 feet by 10 feet, and is, considering the exposed position and latitude, a remarkable tree. But there must have been a still finer one here in 1881, when Mr. J. Webster, father of the present gardener, recorded in the Trans. Scot. Arb. Soc. ix, 63, a tree of equal height and 13 feet 4 inches in girth at 5 feet. Col. Thynne has given me a photograph of a fine tree at Cawdor Castle, Nairnshire, which measures 65 feet by 15 feet 7 inches.
Hunter records several very fine trees in Perthshire as follows: "At Gask the largest tree in the policies is a walnut, a little west of 'The Auld House.' It measures 17 feet 5 inches at 5 feet and then swells to a girth of 21 feet at 8 feet from the ground, and at Blair Drummond there is a fine tree," which Mr. A. Morton, the gardener, informs me is now about 80 feet by 13.
Though the walnut is not uncommonly planted in Ireland, we have seen none remarkable for size. The largest one is reported to be growing at Kilkea Castle in Kildare.
Timber
Until mahogany became common in England about the middle of the eighteenth century, walnut was considered the most valuable wood for furniture, carving, and inside work, and on the Continent most of the best old furniture was made from it. Later it became very valuable for gun-stocks, and is still almost the only wood used, for all except cheap guns. Loudon states that during the long wars at the beginning of the last century in France no less than 12,000 trees were cut annually for gun-stocks, which caused it to become very scarce, and in England as much as £600 was paid for the wood of one tree.
Sir W. Thiselton Dyer informs me that when for political reasons the War Office thought it no longer desirable to depend on walnut, which was mostly imported from the Black Sea, he was consulted as to what other wood might be found as a substitute; but though some twenty sorts of colonial woods were sent for trial from the Museum at Kew to the Small Arms Factory at Enfield, none except the black walnut was found to be at all suitable.
The reason for this is that walnut wood does not warp, and can be cut cleanly in any direction to fit the locks and mechanism of the magazine rifle, and is not liable to swell and bind the lock when wet. But it requires a good deal of care in selection and in cutting out the stocks, so that they are not liable to break at the grip; and the best gunmakers in England obtain their stocks ready cut to specified sizes from French merchants who make a spécialité of this trade.
Maple wood has been found suitable in Japan, for when I was there during the late war, I saw numbers of roughly shaped gun-stocks of that wood being cut in the forest near Koyasan, and carried out on men's backs to supply the immense demand of the arsenal. But in England it was found to make a rifle stock 4 ounces heavier than walnut, and is also liable to warp.
The late Mr. J. East told me that, in the year 1838, at Missenden in Bucks, four walnut trees were sold in one lot for £200, and about the same time two other trees were sold for £100 each, but the demand is now so much lessened by foreign importations, and by the substitution of other woods, such as mahogany and American walnut, that its average price now is not more than from 1s. 6d. to 3s. per foot.
The wood requires a long time to season thoroughly, and should not be used for good work until three to six years after felling, as it is liable to shrink considerably. It is also liable to be ring shaken, and has another great defect in the fact that the sapwood, which forms a large proportion of most trees, is pale in colour and very liable to be attacked by wood-eating beetles. Almost all the old Italian furniture which I have seen is more or less damaged in this way, and though the sapwood is often stained so as to look like the heartwood, it is better in first-class work only to use the latter.
As a rule English walnut does not show so much of the dark markings as is found in the logs imported from Italy and the Black Sea, and Italian walnut is usually specified by English architects. But I have seen such fine panelling made from English wood alone that I have no hesitation in saying that with careful selection and seasoning, the best effect can be obtained from old trees grown on dry soil in this country; and in a small work on English timber by "Acorn"[35] it is stated that the home-grown timber is harder and more durable than the foreign.
The finest wood as regards colour and pattern comes from near the root, and from the forks in the tree, which, however, are liable to twist if used in the solid, and in order to obtain as much as possible of these figured pieces the tree, if old, should be grubbed, and great care taken in cutting it up into suitable thicknesses for the purpose for which it is wanted. The forked parts should be cut into thin veneers and matched as well as possible. For panelling, walnut comes only second to oak, and is found in some of the best houses in England. As a fine example of Italian walnut panelling I may mention the billiard room at Edgworth, near Cirencester, which was designed for my friend Mr. Arthur James, by Mr. Ernest George. Of modern English walnut panelling I have seen a good example put up in Mr. Franklin's beautiful old house, Yarnton Manor, near Oxford, which he has recently restored, and in which the panelling both of oak and walnut is admirable. The late Mr. Holford of Westonbirt, Tetbury, had his large music-room entirely fitted with walnut cut on his own estate.
A newer system of using walnut wood in large knife-cut unpolished veneers is now adopted by modern decorators, of which a fine example may be seen in the board room of the Royal Insurance Company at Liverpool.
One of the most valuable woods in the world is produced by the burrs or excrescences which are produced on the walnut tree, rarely in England, but more commonly in its native country, and which are sought for by agents travelling for French firms at Marseilles, who seem to have a monopoly of this wood. Sometimes they are very large, measuring two to three feet in diameter, but more usually smaller, and are sold at very high prices, as much as £50 to £60 per ton, according to Laslett. They are called loupes in France, and are cut into very thin sheets to cover the very finest pianoforte cases, and much used for cabinet-making. These burrs are said to grow on trees in mountainous and inaccessible regions in Circassia, Georgia, North Persia, and Afghanistan; and I am told by Mr. C.W. Collard that those now imported are not so fine as they used to be some years ago.
I can find no records or measurements of walnuts abroad which show that it ever exceeds in warmer climates the size it attains here; but the largest foreign log which I have ever seen was shown by Messrs. Riva and Massara of Milan at the Exhibition held there in 1906. This log measured about 28 feet long by 15 feet in girth, and was said to contain about 16 cubic metres of timber, equal to about 560 feet. Its weight was 14,800 kilogrammes, and I was informed by the owners that they paid 5800 francs (about £232) for it in Switzerland. But Correvon[36] quotes La Patrie Suisse to the effect that a walnut was cut at Bois-de-Vaux, near Lausanne, which required twenty-four horses to haul it. The lower part of its trunk measured about 24 feet, the diameter was 6 feet 4 inches, and the total contents about 700 cubic feet. This butt was sold for £150 to make gun-stocks. (H.J.E.)
JUGLANS NIGRA, Black Walnut
- Juglans nigra, Linnæus, Sp. Pl. 997 (1753); Loudon, Arb. et Frut. Brit. iii. 1435 (1838); Sargent, Silva N. America, vii. 121, tt. 333, 334 (1895), and Manual Trees N. America, 128 (1905).
A tree attaining 150 feet in height, with a girth of about 15 to 20 feet, forming in the forest a narrow round-topped head, but with spreading branches when isolated. Bark of old trees dark brown, deeply furrowed with broad ridges, which are scaly on the surface.
Leaves up to 3 feet in length, of fifteen to twenty-three leaflets, which are ovate or ovate-lanceolate, long-acuminate at the apex, rounded at the base, sub-sessile, with coarse sharp irregular serrations; upper surface with a very minute and very scattered pubescence; lower surface with numerous glandular and simple hairs. Rachis with yellow glands and scattered glandular hairs. Young shoots with sessile yellow glands and numerous glandular hairs; older shoots pubescent. Leaf-scars obcordate, deeply notched at the apex, without any band of pubescence on their upper edge.
Staminate catkins three to five inches long; scales with six orbicular concave pubescent lobes, and a bract ¼ inch long, which is triangular and tomentose; stamens twenty to thirty. Pistillate flowers, two to five in a spike; involucre laciniate in margin or reduced to an obscure ring below the apex of the ovary; perianth lobes ovate, acute.
Fruit solitary or in pairs,[37] globose or slightly pear-shaped, pubescent, not viscid, yellowish green, 1½ to 2 inches in diameter; nut oval or oblong, 1⅛ to 1½ inch, deeply ridged irregularly, four-celled interiorly at the base, and slightly two-celled at the apex.[38]
Identification
In summer it is readily distinguishable from J. cinerea and the Eastern Asiatic species, which have serrate leaflets, by the character of the leaf-scar, which is deeply notched at the apex and without the transverse band above its upper margin, which characterises those species. The long acuminate pubescent leaflets distinguish it from the hybrids pyriformis and Vilmoriniana. It has much larger leaflets than J. rupestris, and cannot be confused with J. stenocarpa, which has a broadly obovate terminal leaflet.
In winter the following characters are available:—Twigs stout, reddish brown, glandular-pubescent; lenticels small. Leaf-scars on prominent pulvini, obcordate, deeply notched above, without pubescent band, with three groups of bundle-dots. Pith large, buff-coloured, with wide open chambers. Terminal bud ovoid or conical, grey-tomentose, usually with four external scales visible in two valvate pairs, the scales not lobed at the apex. Lateral buds, arising at an angle of 45°, small, globose, pubescent, with two to three scales visible externally; there are often two buds superposed, the lower one minute and embedded in the notch of the leaf-scar. The reddish-brown pubescent twigs and superposed pubescent lateral buds will distinguish this species from the common walnut.
Varieties and Hybrids
No varieties are known. The Black Walnut forms hybrids with the common walnut, which have been dealt with under the latter species. Burbank has raised a hybrid, which he calls "Royal," between J. nigra and J. californica.[39]
Juglans nigra x cinerea. A tree supposed to be this hybrid grew in the Botanic Garden at Marburg, and was described by Wender as Juglans cinerea-nigra in Linnæa, xxix. 728 (1857). (A.H.)
Distribution
According to Sargent the black walnut occurs in rich bottom lands and fertile hillsides, from western Massachusetts to southern Ontario, southern Michigan and Minnesota, central and northern Nebraska, eastern Kansas, and southward to western Florida, central Alabama, and Mississippi, and the valley of the San Antonio River, Texas; most abundant in the region west of the Alleghany Mountains, and of its largest size on the western slopes of the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee, and on the fertile bottom lands of southern Illinois and Indiana, south-western Arkansas, and the Indian Territory.
The black walnut is not only one of the largest deciduous trees throughout a great part of the Middle States, but also one which, until it became too scarce, furnished a great part of the most valuable hardwood. It reached its maximum of size and abundance in the western foothills of the Southern Alleghany Mountains and in the rich, fertile alluvial river bottoms through which the great rivers of Ohio, Indiana, Tennessee, and Kentucky flow, and which were the first homes of the settlers who crossed the mountains towards the end of the eighteenth century, and for a quarter of a century carried on an unceasing warfare with the Indians. These pioneers also waged war against the forest whenever they could spare time, and for many years used the black walnut for fencing and for house-building, because it was an easy wood to split and to work; but they did not foresee that the trees which they destroyed would become one of the most valuable products of their farms, and would in a century be almost extinct as timber trees in many places where they were formerly the commonest.[40]
When I was travelling in the mountains of North Carolina in 1895, I saw but few black walnuts of large size, and met with men who were travelling about purposely to find and buy them in all accessible places. In the North Carolina forestry exhibit at the St. Louis Exhibition in 1904, I saw a walnut log from a tree in Jackson County, Kentucky, over 12 feet long and 52 inches in diameter which had evidently been lying long in the forest, and had been repeatedly burnt over, which produced over 800 cubic feet of timber, and was sold, as I was told, for $800. I heard of another still standing in Kentucky which was valued at $1000.
These great trees are now hardly to be seen except in remote regions where it is impossible to get them out, and when I visited the Lower Wabash Valley in southern Illinois, where Prof. R. Ridgway[41] found the largest deciduous trees in the United States, I did not see one of great size. Dr. J. Schneck, who was my guide and who knows the flora of this region better than anyone, gives in his Catalogue of the Flora of the Lower Wabash, the measurements of a tree taken by himself as follows:—Circumference, at 3 feet above the swell of the root, 22 feet; height of trunk to first branch, 74 feet; total height, 155 feet. Prof. Ridgway measured another 15 feet in girth at 3 feet, and 71 feet to the first branch, where the trunk was 3 feet in diameter. Assuming such trees to have measured 12 feet in girth in the middle they would contain 600 to 700 feet of clean timber in the first length alone, and now be worth as much as many acres of the land they grew on would fetch when cleared for agriculture.
But in regions which have colder summers and poorer soil, the black walnut does not attain anything like these dimensions, and I have seen none in New England which equal the best trees in Britain. Emerson[42] speaks of one in the Botanic Garden at Cambridge, Mass., as measuring 6 feet 3 inches at 3 feet from the ground, and the tree which he figures growing near Roslyn was a poor specimen of small size.
In Canada it was once abundant in the rich forests of Southern Ontario, but almost all the old trees have been cut down, and plantations are now being made in various parts of Ontario and Western Quebec, and in Alberta and British Columbia, as well as in many parts of the United States from Kansas to California.
Black walnuts of great size are indeed now so rare that I have been unable to procure a really good photograph of the tree in its native forest, and there is none in Pinchot and Ashe's Timber Trees of N. Carolina. These authors say that it bears seed abundantly only every three or four years, and that young seedlings are not common except in low fertile, rather open lands, or in meadows which border streams. The growth is very rapid until the tree has reached a large size; only small trees send up shoots from the stump.
The tree, however, has been so largely planted in many parts of the States and in Canada, and succeeds so well, even so far west as British Columbia, that it may again become generally useful as a timber tree.
Cultivation
The black walnut was first described by Parkinson,[43] and was introduced into England by the younger Tradescant before 1656, as it is mentioned in the list[44] of the plants growing in his garden at that time. A tree was growing in Bishop Compton's garden at Fulham in 1688, according to Ray.[45]
The black walnut is easy to grow from seed, but, except the hickories, none is more difficult to transplant, on account of the long fleshy tap-roots which it forms at an early age, and which, when grown in the good deep soil which it likes, are at a year old often three or four times as long as the seedling itself. For this reason, unless special care is given to its treatment, it is not likely to become so fine a tree as when sown in situ, and, though I have successfully transplanted many at one or two years old, I would much prefer the other method.
Though the nuts ripen in England in hot summers, they are not so large, and do not, I think, produce such strong plants as those imported from North America, and, if possible, I should prefer to get them from trees growing in Canada or New England than from farther south.[46] The nuts are best sown when ripe, as if kept dry for some time, they either lose their germinating power or come up so late that they make weak plants. In any locality which is subject to late frosts it would be better to sow them in boxes at least two feet deep and plant them out when a year old, as like many exotic trees they do not ripen their young wood well, and are liable to be frozen back in winter or spring, which induces a bushy instead of a straight habit of growth.
As this tree requires to be well sheltered and drawn up by surrounding trees in order to form a tall and valuable trunk, it should be sown or planted in small deeply-dug patches in a rich wood, kept free from weeds and protected from mice, rabbits, and boys, until the trees are six to eight feet in height, which they should be under favourable circumstances at four to six years after sowing.
All these difficulties have made the tree unpopular with nurserymen, who rarely care to grow trees for which there is little regular demand. But the great value of the timber, its rapid growth on suitable places, and its perfect hardiness when once established, give it, in my opinion, so much importance, that, however troublesome it may be in its early stages, it should be tried at least on a small scale as a timber tree in the warmest and best soils of the southern, eastern, and west midland counties. For further particulars of the nursery treatment of this tree see Cobbett's Woodlands, Art. 553; or Arboriculture,[47] iv. 7, July 1905. Cobbett, who knew the tree well, considered as I do that it was a hardier and better timber tree than the common walnut.
The black walnut cannot be expected to attain great size except on deep soil in a warm situation. A tree grown from a nut, brought by my father from America over 60 years ago, is now only about 60 feet high and 3 feet in girth, on the dry oolite of the Cotswolds; whilst in Kent, on good loam, it has attained 100 feet by 12 feet in about 100 years, and probably contains as much timber, and that of twice the value, as any oak of its age in Great Britain. It seems indifferent to the chemical nature of the soil, if it is deep, light, and well drained, and should have a southern or western aspect.
It is stated in Woods and Forests that the tree is almost if not entirely rabbit-proof, for when nearly everything else is barked it is left untouched, even in a young state.
I have no certain knowledge as to the age which this tree attains, but from the fact that the old ones at Fulham Palace and Syon are dead or dying, I should suppose that, like the common walnut, it is not a very long-lived tree.
Cultivation in Germany and France
The high value of the timber of the black walnut has led to experiments with the tree in Continental forests. These trials have, however, hitherto been only on a small scale.
In the State forests of Prussia the black walnut has been planted in twenty-two different stations, the whole area under cultivation being thirty-one acres, the separate plots varying in size from seven acres to a rood. Schwappach[48] draws the following conclusions from the results obtained in these experimental plots:—Of all the exotic species which have been tried in Prussia, Juglans nigra is the most exacting as regards soil and climate. It only thrives on deep moist rich soils, such as loamy sand rich in humus or pure loam, and never succeeds on shallow soils of any kind, or on wet clay or sand. It requires for its good development a considerable amount of warmth and a long season of vegetation. It has only succeeded on the best oak soils, such as the alluvial lands by the rivers Oder, Mulde, and Elster, and in certain restricted areas of the hilly land of central and western Germany.
Schwappach gives a description of the long tap-root of the seedling, and the consequent difficulty in transplanting; but he lays stress upon the fact that in Germany the seedlings normally make their appearance very late, and believes that this is one of the main causes of failure, as the young plants do not then ripen their wood, and are destroyed by late frosts. He advocates the early germination of the seeds by artificial means, such as by placing them in pits covered with straw, soil, and horse-dung. These speedily germinate, and are then planted in the forest in gaps of about a rood in extent, which are the result of clear felling, or under 
Plate 76.
BLACK WALNUT AT TWICKENHAM
Plate 77.
BLACK WALNUT AT THE MOTE
In France Henry has seen a small plantation of black walnut near Annecy; but the results obtained were unsatisfactory, as the young plants had suffered much from frost. M. Pardé,[50] however, strongly recommends its cultivation, and points out that, unlike the common walnut, it can be grown as a forest tree; and states that at Les Barres it sows itself regularly and abundantly.
Remarkable Trees
The largest tree which we know of in England is growing in the London County Council public park of Marble Hill, Twickenham, in rich alluvial soil close to the Thames. It was measured by Sir Hugh Beevor and Dr. Henry in August 1905, and the height was found to be 98 feet, the stem girthing at 5 feet up 14 feet 3 inches. The bole is about 18 feet long, dividing into two great limbs, with large spreading branches, forming a beautifully symmetrical crown. The diameter of the greatest spread of the branches was 93 feet (Plate 76).
Perhaps the next finest tree now standing in England is the one which I figure (Plate 77), and which grows on a bank at The Mote, near Maidstone, the property of Sir Marcus Samuel, Bart. I have twice measured this tree, first in 1902, when I made it 103 feet by 12 feet in girth, and again in 1905, when I made it 101 feet by 12 feet 6 inches. I am informed by Mr. Bunyard of Maidstone that it was probably planted about 100 years ago by his grandfather. The tree is so healthy, and apparently growing so fast, that it may become very much larger than it now is. At Gatton Park, Surrey, the seat of J. Colman, Esq., there was, in 1904, a tree about 100 feet by 9 feet 6 inches in girth, with a very tall, handsome trunk. Another at the same place, which, when I saw it, was lying on the ground, was about 95 feet by 9 feet, with a bole 10 feet long, and, according to the measurement given me by the late Mr. Cragg, agent for the estate, contained 315 cubic feet of timber.
At Highclere, Berks, there is a fine tree 90 feet by 9 feet 6 inches; and at Bute House, Petersham, Henry measured one 78 feet by 11 feet 10 inches in 1903. At Burwood House, Surrey, Col. Thynne has measured a tree, which I have not seen, 79 feet by 12 feet. At Syon House there was a fine tree mentioned by Loudon, as then 79 feet high and 2 feet 11 inches in diameter. In 1849, according to the manuscript catalogue of trees at Syon, it was 90 feet by 7 feet 3 inches; when I saw it in 1903 its top was gone, the tree fast decaying, and the girth about 10 feet.
At Youngsbury, near Ware, Herts, there are two fine trees which Mr. H. Clinton Baker measured in March 1906. The larger was go feet high by 11 feet 10 inches in girth; the smaller 80 feet by 11 feet 3 inches. At Albury, Surrey, near the gardener's cottage, there is a tree which measured in 1904, 90 feet by 9 feet 2 inches. At Arley Castle a black walnut is bearing mistletoe. At Barton, near Bury St. Edmunds, there is one which is about 75 feet by 7 feet, which cannot be more than about 60 years old.
Sir Hugh Beevor reports a fine tree, 80 feet high by 12 feet girth, at Spixworth Hall, Norfolk. In the rooms of the Hall there is some flooring made of locally-grown black walnut. At Wimpole, he measured another tree 78 feet by 12 feet 8 inches.
At Strathfieldsaye there is a plantation of eighteen young black walnuts in a group on the lawn, which, though about eighteen years old when I saw them in 1903, were only 8 to 10 feet high. Three others raised at the same time but planted out younger are twice as high. This seems to me to prove the importance of not keeping this tree long in the nursery. A fine tree on the other side of the house at the same place is about 80 feet by 7 feet, and had a few nuts on it even in the wet season of 1903.
At Fulham Palace there was a tree, which, according to Loudon, was 150 years old in 1835, being then about 70 feet high and 5 feet in diameter. In 1879[51] this tree was 16 feet in girth breast-high, and had passed its prime; and has been quite dead for ten years. This is the largest girth of any black walnut recorded in England.
At Bisham Abbey, near Marlow, the property of Sir H.J. Vansittart Neale, growing in a grove near the garden, where they have been drawn up by other trees, are four fine black walnuts, of the age of which there is no record. The tallest is nearly if not quite 100 feet high, with a clean bole about half as long, and a girth of 8 feet 2 inches; the others have shorter trunks, the biggest being 10 feet 3 inches in girth, and another 8 feet 6 inches, but are nearly as tall.
At Corsham Court, Wilts, the seat of Lord Methuen, is one of the finest specimens in England, with a clean trunk about 35 feet without a branch and 11 feet 5 inches in girth. It is 75 to 80 feet high, and has a very spreading crown of drooping branches, which cover a space 30 yards across. At Lacock Abbey, near Corsham, the seat of Mr. C.H. Talbot, are some good trees planted by the grandfather of the present owner between 1780 and 1800, of which the largest is about 100 feet by 11 feet 5 inches, with a bole of 8 feet, but this has ceased to bear nuts. The others were planted subsequent to 1828, and the best of them is 60 to 70 feet high by 7 feet girth, and bears nuts profusely.
At Walsingham Abbey, Norfolk, the seat of H. Lee Warner, Esq., there was a specimen figured in Grigor's Eastern Arboretum, p. 300, as a tree clothed to the ground with foliage, and of which the spreading branches were propped up. In 1840 it was 8 feet in girth, with a spread of branches 165 feet in circumference, but is now much decayed.
At Brightwell Park, Oxon, the property of R. Lowndes Norton, Esq., there are three or four well-grown trees about 50 years old, the largest of which measures 68 feet by 5 feet 10 inches, and bears fruit abundantly. The leaves of these trees were conspicuous by their yellow colour in the first week of October.
At all the four last-named places these trees have been known as hickories, and it is probable that others of the so-called hickories in England are really black walnuts.
Two trees[52] growing close together at The Firs, Manor Lane, London, S.E., both measured, in 1886, 10 feet 9 inches at 4 feet above the ground, and were estimated to be 90 feet high. They were then in excellent health, and bore good crops of nuts, which, however, were rarely perfectly developed.
Many other trees no doubt exist in old places south of the Thames; but we have never seen or heard of any large ones in the midland or western counties. Sir Charles Strickland, however, tells us that the black walnut is quite hardy in Yorkshire; and that he has trees at Hildenley, 15 to 20 feet high and ripening seed, whilst at Housham, another place of his in the same county, they thrive even better in the woods, where they look like becoming fine timber trees.
In Ireland, the largest tree seen by Henry is at Ballykilcavan, Queen's County: it measured in 1907, 68 feet high by 9½ feet in girth. We know of no trees of any size in Scotland.
The largest which we have heard of in Europe is a tree growing at Schloss Dyck, the seat of Fürst Salm-Dyck in Germany, which was planted in 1809, and in 1904 measured 35 metres high by 3.58 metres in girth, with a crown diameter of 35 metres.
Timber
It is very strange that though this timber has been imported on a large scale from North America for many years, both to England and the Continent, where it commands a very high price, its value is quite unknown to the English country timber merchant, and none of the writers on wood seem to know much about it. Even Marshall Ward, in his edition of Laslett (1894), says (p. 181) that it will not bear comparison with the quality of either Black Sea or Italian walnut wood. Boulger, in Wood (p. 339), says that it is "more uniform in colour, darker, less liable to insect attack, and thus more durable than European walnut." Stone says (p. 211), "This wood is readily confused with J. regia."
I can only say that I have seen four different trees felled in England, of which the wood was perfectly distinct by its purplish colour from that of any European walnut; and though I have not been able to get any definite proof of the truth of Boulger's statement as to its freedom from insect attack, yet the furniture which I have had made from three of the trees in question is distinctly superior to that of common walnut, and as good as imported black walnut, in colour; and when properly seasoned, for which three or four years should be allowed, as good cabinetmaker's wood as the best Circassian or Italian walnut: and Unwin,[53] quoting Nordlinger and Mayr, says that the timber of trees grown in Germany has the same specific gravity and the same beautifully coloured heartwood as in America. I am informed by experienced cabinetmakers and timber merchants that the colour and quality of the wood now imported is, either on account of its being younger or grown in different localities, inferior to what it used to be when first introduced to this market, and Mr. A. Howard told me that he could not buy American timber of better quality than that of a tree blown down at Albury which was given me by the Duke of Northumberland. It takes a beautiful polish either with oil or French polish, has not warped in the least degree, and has in many cases a beautifully variegated figure. The sapwood is thick and of a paler colour, and should not be used in first-class work any more than that of the common walnut, which is always attacked sooner or later by the larve of a woodboring beetle.
From what I saw of it in America, I believe it to be extremely durable when exposed to the weather, as it lasts long in fences, and large canoes were made from it, whilst it was the favourite wood for furniture until its increasing scarcity and price caused it to be superseded by oak and mahogany.
Old trees often show a beautiful wavy grain, as well as a variety of markings, and from the forks and burrs veneers are cut, which, though of a different colour, are equal in beauty and pattern to mahogany or satinwood.
Cobbett[54] states, though he does not appear to have seen it himself, that there was at New York part of a black walnut trunk, which measured 36 feet round at the base, and had been scooped out and used as a bar-room, and afterwards as a grocer's shop, and that this tree, if it had been sawed into inch boards, would have yielded 50,000 feet, worth at that time $1500, but this seems exaggerated; though Loudon states (p. 1438) that a tree, perhaps the same as the one Cobbett speaks of, and grown on the south side of Lake Erie, was exhibited in London in 1827, which was 12 feet in diameter, hollowed out and furnished as a sitting-room. (H.J.E.)
JUGLANS CINEREA, Butternut
- Juglans cinerea, Linnæus, Sp. Pl. 1415 (1763); Loudon, Arb. et. Frut. Brit. iii. 1439 (1838); Bentley and Trimen, Medicinal Plants, iv. t. 247 (1880); Sargent, Silva N. America, vii. 118, tt. 331, 332 (1895); and Manual Trees N. America, 126 (1905).
A tree attaining in America occasionally 100 feet in height, with a girth of 9 feet, but usually smaller in size, dividing at 20 or 30 feet above the ground into many stout horizontal limbs, and forming a broad, low, round-topped head. Bark of young trees smooth and light grey, becoming in older trees deeply fissured, with broad scaly ridges.
Leaves with eleven to seventeen leaflets, which are sub-opposite, sessile, oblong, unequal-sided, rounded, and slightly unequal at the base, acuminate at the apex; margin finely serrate, the tips of the serrations being directed outwards, ciliate; upper surface finely pubescent with stellate and long simple hairs; lower surface pale, with numerous fine stellate hairs, there being some glandular hairs on the midrib towards its base. Rachis with numerous short glandular hairs. Young shoots with white sessile glands and numerous short white glandular hairs; old shoots pubescent. The leaf-scars are semicircular or triangular, with the upper edge a straight line, and furnished with a transverse band of pubescence.
Flowers: staminate catkins 2 to 3 inches long; scales with six puberulous lobes; bract rusty-pubescent with acute apex; stamens eight to twelve. Pistillate flowers in six- to eight-flowered spikes; involucre with viscid glandular hairs, and slightly shorter than the linear-lanceolate perianth lobes.
Fruit: in drooping clusters of three to five, ovate oblong with two or rarely four obscure ridges, coated with rusty clammy hairs, 1½ to 2½ inches in diameter. Nut ovate, abruptly acuminate and contracted at the apex, with eight ribs, internally two-celled at the base and one-celled above the middle with a narrow pointed apical cavity.
Varieties and Hybrids
No varieties are known. A hybrid between it and Juglans nigra has been observed. See Juglans nigra.
Identification
The best mark of distinction of this species at all seasons is the leaf-scar, which has a transverse raised band of pubescence above its upper margin, which is never notched, and is straight or slightly convex. In winter the following characters are observable in the twigs and buds. Twigs stout, reddish brown, covered with dense glandular pubescence. Leaf-scars, as described above, obovate, on prominent pulvini, with three groups of bundle-dots. Terminal buds oblong, greyish, densely pubescent, the two outer scales conspicuously lobed at the apex, the two inner scales scarcely lobed. Lateral buds, directed outwards at an angle of 45°, small, ovoid, pubescent; frequently two superposed. Pith dark brown, with narrow chambers. (A. H.)
Distribution
According to Sargent, it occurs in rich moist soil near the banks of streams and on low rocky hills from southern New Brunswick and the valley of the Saint Lawrence in Ontario to eastern Dakota, south-eastern Nebraska, central Kansas, and northern Arkansas, and on the Appalachian Mountains to northern Georgia and northern Alabama; most abundant and of its largest size northward. The grey walnut or butternut, as it is commonly called, is a common tree over the same region as that which produces the black walnut, but never attains the same size, and, as a rule, unless drawn up in the forest is a much more spreading and less valuable tree. It does not in New England usually exceed 30 to 50 feet in height, with a trunk 1 to 4 feet in diameter, but sometimes in the rich forests of the Wabash valley attains greater dimensions. Ridgway says, loc. cit. 76, that two trees felled in the "Timber Settlement," Wabash county, measured 97 feet and 117 feet in length, with clear trunks 50 feet and 32 feet long, and 1 foot 10 inches in diameter. Pinchot and Ashe, loc. cit. 82, say that in North Carolina it is nowhere common, but in cool rich mountain valleys it attains 70 feet high with a diameter of 3 feet. In New England Emerson, loc. cit. 210, mentions a tree in Richmond, Mass., which was 13 feet 3 inches in girth at the smallest place below the branches. I never saw any such trees as these; and near Ottawa, where the tree is approaching its northern limit of distribution, it was a small branchy tree bearing little fruit.
Introduction
The butternut was first described by Parkinson, [55] and was apparently introduced into England at the same time as the black walnut, i.e. sometime before 1656, as it is probably one of the species mentioned by Tradescant[56] as growing in his garden. Loudon states that it was introduced into cultivation by the Duchess of Bedford in 1699; but the tree referred to by him was Carya alba.[57]
Cultivation
Though it must have been planted in many places in this country the butternut seems to be now a very scarce tree. The only one I have seen of any size grows in the grounds of Mr. C.S. Dickens at Coolhurst, near Horsham, and was in 1902 52 feet high and 4 feet 2 inches in girth. This produced fruit in 1900 from which I raised two seedlings, one of which is now growing at Colesborne. I noticed that the roots of these seedlings instead of being long, fusiform, and free from rootlets, as in J. regia and J. nigra, formed a thick, fibrous mass, which made the tree very easy to transplant. I have since then raised numerous seedlings from imported seed, by sowing them both in pots and in the open ground. If allowed to become dry they sometimes lie over a year, and should therefore be sown as soon as ripe. The young trees are distinguishable from those of J. nigra by having fewer pairs of leaflets, but they grow quite as fast, and are quite as hardy as the latter. Both nigra and cinerea, though liable to injury from late spring frosts, are much hardier as regards winter frost when old enough to ripen their wood, but as, like other walnuts, they do not bear pruning well, they require careful attention when young in order to become shapely trees. Sir Charles Strickland has raised from seed plants at Boynton in Yorkshire which grew to five or six feet high, but all ultimately died.
Mr. J.H. Bonny, Ratcliffe Cottage, Forton, Garstang, sent specimens to Kew in 1900 from a tree 60 years old, which fruited for the first time in that year. It had only attained 22 feet high by 2½ feet in girth at 5 feet from the ground. There is a tree at Bayfordbury which produced a few nuts in 1905. It is 35 feet high by 3 feet 2 inches in girth, and is as large as a black walnut planted beside it. At Tredethy in Cornwall, the seat of F.T. Hext, Esq., I am told by Mr. Bartlett, that there was in 1905 a tree 35 feet by 2 feet 2 inches.
At Riccarton near Edinburgh, the seat of Sir James Gibson Craig, Bart., there is a butternut growing in a sheltered spot which Henry measured in 1905, and though its position makes it difficult to measure accurately, he believes it to be about 50 feet by 3 feet 3 inches.
In Ireland Henry measured in 1904 at Kilmacurragh, Co. Wicklow, a tree 32 feet high by 3 feet 4 inches; while at Charleville in the same county, the seat of Lord Monck, a tree, planted probably in 1869, was 25 feet high by 2 feet in girth.
Timber
The timber of this tree, though it resembles that of other walnuts in texture and grain, is much inferior in colour to that of the black walnut, but Hough[58] says that though not so high-priced it is nevertheless of great value for interior finish and wainscoting. In Prof. Sargent's house at Brookline, near Boston, I saw a very handsome mantelpiece and some panelling made from it, and it is occasionally used for furniture. It is pale brown in colour, with whitish-grey sapwood, and the burrs are sometimes cut into handsome veneers. Mr. John Booth[59] states that he cut down some exotic trees planted by his father at the celebrated Flottbeck nurseries near Hamburg when about 50 years old; and from the wood of a butternut wainscoted a room; "the polish was even finer than that of J. nigra, with a splendid glossy hue."
Emerson says, loc. cit. 209, that from the bark a mild purgative is made, and thai the Shakers at Lebanon obtain a rich purple dye from it. The common dye used by the early settlers for their homespun cloth was from the husk of the butternut, which gives a fawn colour. The young half-grown nuts make excellent pickles if gathered early in June, but the ripe nuts, though eaten by boys and Indians, are oily and soon become acrid.
According to L.B. Case, who wrote an interesting article[60] on this tree, if an incision is made in the trunk early in spring before the unfolding of the leaves, it yields a rich saccharine sap, nearly if not quite equal to that obtained from the sugar maple. The medicinal uses of the bark are fully explained in Bentley and Trimen's work cited above. (H.J.E.)
JUGLANS RUPESTRIS, Texan Walnut
- Juglans rupestris,[61] Engelmann, Sitgreave's Report, 171, t. 15 (1853); Sargent, Silva N. America, vii. 125, tt. 335, 336 (1895), and Manual Trees N. America, 129 (1905).
The typical form, with small leaflets, which has been introduced into cultivation in Europe, is a shrub or small tree; bark of young trunks smooth, pale, whitish, becoming in older trees deeply furrowed and scaly. Leaflets, seven to fifteen or more, small, one to three inches long, sub-sessile, ovate or lanceolate, never oblong, apex acuminate, base rounded and unequal-sided, crenulate-serrate and non-ciliate in margin; upper surface with scattered minute pubescence; lower surface green with scattered minute brown hairs and axil tufts. Rachis with numerous sessile yellow glands and glandular hairs. Young shoots with numerous sessile yellow glands, interspersed with glandular hairs and obcordate leaf-scars, which are notched above. Older shoots shortly pubescent.
Flowers: staminate, catkins slender, two to four inches long, scales three- to five-lobed, with ovate-lanceolate tomentose bracts; stamens twenty. Pistillate flowers few in a spike, tomentose, involucre irregularly divided into a laciniate border, slightly shorter than the ovate acute calyx-lobes.
Fruit: globose or rarely oblong, very variable in size, ½ to 1½ inch in diameter; husk glabrate or coated with rufous hairs; nut globose without ridges, often compressed at the ends, dark brown or black, grooved with longitudinal simple or forked grooves, four-celled at the base, two-celled at the apex.
Var. major, Torrey, Sitgreave's Report, 171, t. 16 (1853): usually a tree, attaining 50 feet in height with a trunk 15 feet in girth. In this form the leaflets are large, reaching 6 inches in length; the fruit is also larger. It would appear that this variety is the western form, the typical form being characteristic of the eastern part of the area of distribution of the species.
Identification
The form of this species usually cultivated in England is distinguished in summer by its small leaves, bushy habit, and the other characters given above. In winter the following characters are available:—Twigs very slender, olive-green or brown, densely pubescent. Leaf-scars set obliquely on prominent pulvini, small, obcordate, notched above, without pubescent band above the upper margin; bundle-dots in three groups. Terminal bud elongated, slender, densely and minutely pubescent, the tips of the two outer scales slightly lobed. Lateral buds, arising at an angle of 45°, minute, ovoid, pubescent, usually solitary. Pith small, brownish, with wide chambers.
Distribution
According to Sargent this species occurs on the limestone banks of the streams of central and western Texas, shrubby or rarely more than 30 feet high (var. typica); common and of larger size in the cañons of the mountains of New Mexico and Arizona south of the Colorado plateau. It is also met with in northern Mexico,[62] where it frequently leaves the mountain cañons, following the water-courses which are dry throughout most of the year. In such situations its average diameter is 12 to 18 inches, and its height 20 to 30 feet; the nuts, less than an inch in diameter, are scarcely edible.
Cultivation
This species was discovered in western Texas in 1835 by Berlandier. It was growing in 1868 in the Botanic Garden at Berlin, according to a note in Engelmann's Herbarium.[63] It does not seem to have been known in England till 1894, when seeds from Fort Huancha in Arizona were sent to Kew by Sargent. A tree grown from this seed has attained now (1905) about 12 feet in height. There is one nearly as large at Tortworth, and a seedling from Kew is planted at Colesborne, where it seems at least as hardy as the common species and ripens its wood earlier. A tree planted at Mount Edgcumbe, near Plymouth, in 1898 is 9 feet 4 inches high, with a spread of 10 feet. It has been cut back twice, and looks better as a bush than as a tree. (A.H.)
JUGLANS MANDSHURICA, Manchurian Walnut
- Juglans mandshurica, Maximowicz, Prim. Fl. Amur. 76 (1859); and Mél. Biol. viii. 630, fig. (1872); C. De Candolle, in D.C. Prod. xvi. 2, 138 (1864); Gard. Chron. 1888, iv. 384, fig. 53.
- Juglans regia octagona, in Revue Horticole, 1861, p. 429, fig. 106.
- Juglans regia cordata, in Garden, 1896, p. 478, fig.
A tree attaining 60 feet in height and 5 feet in girth. Bark dark ashy in colour, furrowed in old trees. Judging from herbarium specimens, as I have not been able to examine living trees in England, this species differs little in character of leaves and branchlets from Juglans Sieboldiana. Maximowicz, who observed both species growing wild, states that he was unable to find any good distinctions between the two species except in the characters of the nut.
The fruit occurs in short racemes, six to thirteen in a cluster, and is globular-ovate to oblong, viscid, and stellate pubescent. The nut resembles that of Juglans cinerea, but is less sharply ridged, globose or ovate, rounded at the base, abruptly and shortly acuminate at the apex, eight-ribbed, with the intervals much wrinkled.
This species occurs in mountain woods in eastern Manchuria, between the Bureia range and the Sea of Japan, from lat. 50° to the Korean frontier. It is frequent along the river Amur in its lower part and on its tributaries. This species is also widely spread throughout Northern and Western China, where it is common in mountain woods at low altitudes, from Chihli through Hupeh and Szechwan to Yunnan. So far as I have seen it, both in Hupeh and Yunnan, it never makes a large tree, and rarely exceeds 40 feet in height, but Komarov informed us that in Mandshuria it attains 80 feet high by 19 to 20 in girth.
This plant was introduced[64] into the Botanic Garden of St. Petersburg by Maximowicz from seeds sent from the Amur. A tree[65] from seed planted in 1879 in the Arnold Arboretum bore fruit in 1883, which was large, more nearly spherical and less rough than the butternut, and of good flavour. The tree is described as being compact and handsome in habit, and likely to become of value as a fruit tree in the northern parts of the United States, where the common walnut cannot be grown successfully.
Specimens were sent to Dr. Masters[66] in 1888 from a tree which had fruited in the nursery of Mr. J. van Volxem at Brussels, where the fruit ripens some weeks before that of the common walnut, and the tree seems less injured by spring frosts. (A.H.)
JUGLANS CORDIFORMIS, Cordate Walnut
- Juglans cordiformis, Maximowicz, Mél. Biol. viii. 635, cum fig. (1872); Shirasawa, Icon. Ess. Forest Jap., text 35, t. 17 (1899); Rehder, Mittheil. Deut. Dendrol. Gesell. 1903, p. 117; Gardeners' Chronicle, 1901, xxx. 292, Supplementary Illustration.
- Juglans Sieboldiana, var. cordiformis, Makino, in Tokyo Bot. Mag. 1895, p. 313.
A tree attaining 50 feet in height and 6 feet in girth. Bark, according to Shirasawa, remaining smooth for a long time, becoming fissured with age.
Leaves with eleven to thirteen leaflets, which are sub-opposite, oblong with unequal sides, acute or acuminate at the apex, cordate at the base, sessile or subsessile, the petiolule not exceeding 1⁄16 inch, the base of the leaflet extending over the rachis so that the leaflet appears to be more sessile than is the case in J. Sieboldiana; serrations fine, shallow, irregular, directed forwards and ciliate; upper surface finely pubescent, with only tufted hairs; lower surface pale in colour, pubescent, with numerous stellate hairs, dense along the midrib on which the hairs are glandular; rachis with densely glandular long reddish hairs, sessile glands being absent. Young shoots covered with long white hairs, which are tipped with red glands and are much denser than in J. Sieboldiana; no sessile glands visible. Leaf-scar as in that species.
Flowers: male catkins twelve inches long or more; female catkins about five inches long, bearing seven to twelve flowers.
Fruit globose; nut heart-shaped, much flattened, sharply two-edged, with a shallow longitudinal groove in the middle of each flattened side, smooth over the surface, rather thin-shelled.
Identification
Readily distinguished in summer by the cordate leaflets and the young shoots densely covered with long white hairs, which bear red glands at the tips. See under Juglans Sieboldiana.
In winter the following characters are available:—Twigs stout, brown, covered with long glandular hairs, which tend, however, to fall off from the lower part of the shoot. Leaf-scar large, set slightly obliquely on pulvini which are scarcely elevated, obovate with two lateral lobes and notched above; the upper margin with a transverse raised band of pubescence; bundle-dots in three groups. Terminal bud conical, but compressed laterally, brown, densely pubescent, the two outer scales lobed at the apex. Lateral buds often two superposed, small, brown, ovoid, arising from the twigs at an angle of 60°, densely pubescent. Pith large, brown, with wide chambers.
Distribution
According to Maximowicz, this species occurs in Nippon. Shirasawa says that it is spread along the banks of rivers in the temperate regions of Japan, being rare in the mountains. The wood, according to this author, is light, with little difference between the sapwood and heartwood, and when well seasoned does not warp or split, and on this account it is much esteemed for making gun-stocks. Sargent[67] did not find this tree in Japan, and says that its peculiar nuts are considered by Japanese botanists to be merely extreme varieties of Juglans Sieboldiana. However, the species is kept up as distinct by Matsumura,[68] and cultivated specimens at Kew of the two species can be readily distinguished.
Rehder states in 1903 that a tree in the Arnold Arboretum raised from seed of true Juglans cordiformis fruited some years ago. The fruits, however, did not show the characteristic form of this species, and he doubted whether the tree in question was true cordiformis, or only a variety of Sieboldiana with aberrant fruit.
Nuts were obtained in 1862 by Albrecht,[69] physician to the Russian Consulate at Hakodate, which were sown in the Botanic Garden at St. Petersburg, and produced healthy plants, which were about four feet high, in 1872. Maximowicz also found the nuts in the market at Yokohama. Sargent, who found them offered for sale by the Nurserymen's Association of Yokohama, was informed that they were collected on the slopes of Fujisan.
The tree has been recently sent out by Continental nurserymen, and is hardy in this country. A specimen at Kew, which was raised in 1899 from seed procured from Harvard, is now about twenty feet high. The male catkins, which are produced freely and expand in May, give the tree a striking appearance, but the fruit has not yet matured. (A.H.)
JUGLANS STENOCARPA, Narrow-Fruited Walnut
- Juglans stenocarpa, Maximowicz, Prim. Fl. Amurensis, 78 (1859) and Mél. Biol. viii. 632, cum fig. (1872); Rehder, Mittheil. Deut. Dendrol. Gesell. 1903, p. 117.
A tree of which only the fruits are known in the wild state. The following description of the foliage is taken from a specimen cultivated at Kew.
Leaves with eleven to thirteen leaflets, of which the terminal one in well-developed specimens is much broader than the others, being obovate with a short acuminate apex (4 inches broad by 6 inches long). The lateral leaflets (21⁄4 inches broad by 6 inches long) are oblong, acuminate at the apex, rounded and unequal at the base, subsessile, the petiolule being less than 1⁄16 inch; upper surface with scattered stellate pubescence; lower surface pale in colour, with similar pubescence; all the leaflets coarsely and almost crenately (not sharply) serrate and ciliate in margin. Rachis with very scattered stellate hairs and white sessile glands, there being no glandular hairs. Young shoots glabrous with numerous yellow glands, there being, however, a slight pubescence towards the base of the shoot. Older shoots glabrous, grey, shining, smooth. Leaf-scar broadly obcordate, notched at the summit, three-lobed, and without any band of pubescence on the upper margin.
The nuts, on which Maximowicz founded the species, are described by him as being shining, cylindrical or oblong-oval, slightly narrowed at the base, acuminate at the apex, eight-ribbed, with the intervals between the ribs deeply and obtusely wrinkled. The nuts are cinnamon brown in colour and are two-celled.
This species, having serrate pubescent leaflets and non-bearded leaf-scars, can only be confused with Juglans nigra and J. rupestris. It is readily distinguished in summer from these and all other species of walnut in cultivation by the broad terminal leaflet, which is always well marked in fully developed leaves.
In winter the following characters are available:—Twigs stout, yellowish brown, shining, minutely pubescent towards the apex, glabrous elsewhere. Leaf-scars large, on pulvini which are only slightly elevated, broadly obcordate, notched above and without any pubescent band along their upper margin; bundle dots in three groups. Terminal bud conical, brown, tomentose, the two outer scales slightly lobed at the apex. Lateral buds small, ovoid, tomentose, arising at an angle of 45°. Pith large, buff in colour, with narrow chambers.
The nuts of the tree were found in Russian Manchuria by Maximowicz. Nothing is known about the tree itself.
Specimens are cultivated in the Arnold Arboretum which were obtained from Regel and Keiselring's nursery at St. Petersburg. There are two small plants at Kew which were obtained under the name Juglans mandshurica from a Continental nursery. (A.H.)
JUGLANS SIEBOLDIANA, Siebold's Walnut
- Juglans Sieboldiana, Maximowicz, Mél. Biol. viii. 633 fig. (1872); Lavallée, Arbor. Segrezianum, p. 1, tab. I. et II. (1885); Garden, 1895, xlvii. 442.
- Juglans ailantifolia, Hort. Sieb. ex Lavallée, loc. cit.; and Carrière in Revue Horticole, 1878, p. 414, figs. 85 and 86.
A tree attaining 50 feet in height and 5 feet in girth.
Leaves with thirteen to fifteen leaflets, which are sub-opposite, oblong, acuminate at the apex, with base rounded and unequal, sub-sessile, the petiolule being less than 1⁄16 inch; serrations fine, shallow, and irregular, directed forwards, ciliate between the teeth; upper surface finely pubescent, with both single and tufted hairs; lower surface pale in colour, covered with numerous stellate hairs, denser close to the midrib on which there are glandular hairs; rachis with long brown glandular hairs and a few small glands near its base. Young shoots green, with long white glandular hairs and white sessile glands; lenticels at first white, becoming brown, conspicuous. Leaf-scars obcordate, three-lobed, deeply notched above, and with a transverse band of pubescence along the upper edge.
Flowers: staminate catkins very long, up to 12 inches, with bracts obtuse at the apex and very villous, scale five-lobed. Pistillate spikes, five to twenty flowered, the rachis and flowers covered with rufous tomentum.
Fruit in long racemes which are ten to twenty inches long; globose to ovate-oblong, shortly acuminate at the apex, viscid and covered with stellate hairs. Nuts ovoid or globose, rounded at the base and acuminate at the apex, with thick winglike sutures, very slightly wrinkled and pitted, not ribbed, rather thick-shelled.
Identification
This species seems to be practically identical in leaves and shoots with Juglans mandshurica, and differs little in these respects from Juglans cordiformis, except that the leaflets of the latter are distinctly cordate at the base. All three species differ, however, remarkably in fruit, and must be kept distinct on that account. They belong to the section of walnuts with bearded leaf-scars, and are readily distinguished from Juglans cinerea, the other species of this group, by having the leaf-scars deeply notched above.
In winter the following characters are available:—Twigs stout, brown, glabrous except near the tip, where the pubescence of summer is retained. Leaf-scars large, on very slightly raised pulvini, obovate, two-lobed above; upper margin convex, with a central notch, and surmounted by a raised band of pubescence; bundle-dots in three groups. Terminal bud brownish, elongated, covered with a dense minute pubescence; outer pair of scales lobed at the apex. Lateral buds arising at an 
Plate 73.
JUGLANS
Distribution
According to Maximowicz it occurs throughout the whole of Japan, there being large trees around temples at Hakodate. At Miadzi, in Kiusiu, it is wild on the sides of mountain streams, being a tree of about eighteen inches in diameter. It is also supposed to occur in the island of Saghalien, as nuts cast up by the sea were found there by F. Schmidt.
Sargent[70] says that Juglans Sieboldiana is a common forest tree in Yezo and the mountainous regions of the other islands of Japan. Specimens more than 50 feet high are uncommon. It is a wide-branched tree, resembling the butternut in habit and in the colour of its pale furrowed bark. The walnuts of this species are an important article of food in Japan, as the nuts are exposed for sale in great quantities in the markets of all the northern towns.
Elwes collected specimens at Asahigawa in central Yezo, and noted that it was always a small tree, 20 to 30 feet in height by a foot in girth. He also saw it near Nikko, but never of any size. It is called Kurumi. The wood, though used to some extent in Japan for gun-stocks and ornamental work, does not take a high place among the valuable timbers of the country. It was not included in the collection of woods exhibited at St. Louis.
Cultivation
Juglans Sieboldiana was introduced from Japan into Leyden about the year 1860 by Siebold, and was sent from there to Segrez in 1866, under the name of Juglans ailantifolia. At Segrez it passed unscathed through the severe winter of 1879–1880, which proved fatal there to the common walnut.
According to Sargent this species is perfectly hardy in New England, where it ripens its fruit. It is not worth growing there as an ornamental tree; but it will produce fruit in regions of greater winter cold than the common walnut can support, and may find some place in planting as a fruit tree.
The largest specimen we know of in these islands is at Belgrove, Queenstown, Ireland, the residence of W. E. Gumbleton, Esq. It was, in 1903, 24 feet in height by 2 feet 9 inches in girth. There are specimens at Kew about 12 feet high, which were grown from seed received in 1894. There is also a small plant at Gunnersbury House, Middlesex, which has borne fruit. (A.H.)
- ↑ Juglans mollis, Engelmann; J. pyriformis, Liebmann; and J. mexicana, Watson.
- ↑ Juglans insularis, Grisebach. Concerning the walnut reputed to occur in Jamaica, J. jamaicensis, C. DC., cf. Kew. Bull. 1894, p. 371.
- ↑ Juglans californica, Watson.
- ↑ Since the above was written, Mr. Dode has published a paper containing descriptions of several new species in Bull. Soc. Dendr. France, i. 67 (1906); but these seem to us to be founded on variable characters, and to be rather forms due to cultivation.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 These three species, though differing remarkably in fruit, are very similar in leaves and shoots.
- ↑ Jour. Linn. Soc. (Bot.), xxviii. 247 (1890). Cf. also Lubbock, Seedlings, ii. 506 seq. (1902). Malformed walnuts are occasionally produced, which are very curious. Cf. Gard. Chron. 1858, p. 5, and 1890, viii. 758, fig. 154.
- ↑ Cf. Kerner, Nat. Hist. Plants, Eng. trans. i. 742, fig. 184 (1898).
- ↑ This is not invariable. Delpino observed that while certain trees of the common walnut were protogynous, i.e. the stigmas ripening first, other trees were protandrous, the stigmas ripening after the anthers. In such cases the trees behave as if they were diœcious. Cf. Darwin, Diff. Forms of Flowers, 10 (1877), and Trelease, Missouri Bot. Garden Report, vii. 27 (1896).
- ↑ Cf. Lubbock, Seedlings, ii. 516, fig. 661 (1902).
- ↑ Cf. Fliche, Bull. Soc. des Sciences, Nancy (1886).
- ↑ Some varieties of cultivated walnuts have the twigs covered with a minute pubescence.
- ↑ Rev. Hort. 1882, p. 419.
- ↑ Gard. Chron. 1883, xx. 114. See Rev. Hort. 1861, p. 430, fig. 108. Called St. John's Walnut, as it does not put forth leaves till Midsummer or St. John's Day, in Parkinson's Theatrum Botanicum, 1414 (1640).
- ↑ The serrate-leaved walnut is mentioned by Parkinson, loc. cit. 1413.
- ↑ Woods and Forests, 1884, pp. 164 and 512. See also concerning this variety L'Horticulteur Français, 1862, p. 47.
- ↑ Rev. Hort. 1861, p. 429, fig. 104.
- ↑ See Hance, in Journ. Bot. 1876, p. 50.
- ↑ Figured in Garden, L. 478 (1896); and Rev. Hort. 1859, p. 147, and 1861, p. 427.
- ↑ The thin-shelled walnut is mentioned in Parkinson, Theatrum Botanicum, 1413 (1640).
- ↑ See Gard. Chron. xxiii. 346 (1898). This variety is figured in Wien. Illust. Gart. Zeitung, 1898, p. 165.
- ↑ Rev. Hort. 1860, p. 99, figs. 21–23, and 1861, p. 428, figs. 101–103. Rehder considers this hybrid to be the same as J. Vilmoriniana.
- ↑ Ann. Sc. Nat. Sér. iv. xviii. t. 4.
- ↑ This is probably the same as Juglans intermedia guadrangulata, Carrière, Rev. Hort. 1870, p. 493, figs. 66–68.
- ↑ Garden and Forest, 1894, p. 436.
- ↑ Verhand. Bot. Vereins Prov. Brandenburg, 150 (1879).
- ↑ 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."
- ↑ Garden, xvi. 412 (1904),
- ↑ Trans. Eng. Arb. Soc. v. 155.
- ↑ In Trans. Eng. Arb. Soc. ii, 225, measurements of this tree made in 1888 by Dr. Prior are given as follows:—height, 94 feet 6 inches; girth, 18 feet; spread, 22 yards by 27.
- ↑ Eastern Arboretum, 279 (1841).
- ↑ Published by W. Rider and Son, London, 1903.
- ↑ Nos Arbres, 267 (1906).
- ↑ A tree at Albury, Surrey, has, however, borne fruit in clusters of three, four, and six, of which specimens are preserved at Kew.
- ↑ For a detailed account of the fruit, seed, and cotyledons of the species, see Lubbock, Seedlings, ii, 517 (1902).
- ↑ Garden and Forest, 1894, p. 436.
- ↑ An interesting account of the war waged against the black walnut by pioneers in Indiana in 1834 is given in Woods and Forests, 1884, p. 633.
- ↑ Proc. U.S. Nat. Museum, 1882, p. 49.
- ↑ Trees of Massachusetts, i. 213.
- ↑ Theatrum Botanicum, 1414 (1640).
- ↑ Museum Tradescantianum, 147 (1656).
- ↑ Historia Plantarum, ii. 1798 (1688)—no doubt the tree mentioned by Loudon as existing in 1835 (see p. 208).
- ↑ But the question as to whether the seeds of trees grown in a comparatively cold climate produce hardier plants than seed from a warm one, is as yet unsolved; and Prof. H. Mayr of Munich, than whom there is no better authority, is inclined to believe that the differences which are observed in the comparative resistance to frost depend on the variable constitution of the individual plant rather than on inherited power.—Cf. H. Mayr, Fremdl. Wald. u. Park-bäume (Berlin, 1906).
- ↑ A magazine of the International Society of Arboriculture; J.P. Brown, Connersville, Ind., U.S.A.
- ↑ Ergebnisse Anbauversuche Fremländischen Holzarten, 37 (1901).
- ↑ Mr. John Booth of Berlin, who has for many years been one of the best advocates for the planting of exotic trees for timber, tells me that the black walnut has been largely planted near Strassburg under the direction of Forstmeister Rebmann, and the results are extremely successful.
- ↑ Les Principaux Végétaux Ligneux Exotigues, p. 21.
- ↑ Figured in Gard. Chron. 1879, xi. 372, t. 52. Cf. p. 265.
- ↑ Gard. Chron. 1886, xxvi. 616, fig, 120.
- ↑ Future Forest Trees, 38 (1905).
- ↑ Woodlands, Art. 553.
- ↑ Theatrum Botanicum, 1414 (1640).
- ↑ Museum Tradescantianum, 146, 147 (1656).
- ↑ Aiton, Hort. Kew, iii, 360 (1789), ex Brit. Museum Sloane MSS. 525 and 3349.
- ↑ American Woods, p. 61.
- ↑ Gard. Chron. xxx. 407 (1901).
- ↑ Woods and Forests, 1884, p. 200.
- ↑ It is probable, as Rehder points out in Cycl. Am. Hort. ii. 846, that Juglans longirostris, Carriére, in Rev. Horticole, 1878, p. 53, fig. 10, belongs to this species.
- ↑ Garden and Forest, 1888, p. 106.
- ↑ Sargent, Silva N. America, loc. cit. 126.
- ↑ Bretschneider, Hist. Europ. Bot. Discoveries in China, i. 609 (1898).
- ↑ Garden and Forest, 1888, pp. 396, 443.
- ↑ Gard. Chron., loc. cit.
- ↑ Forest Flora of Japan, 60 (1894).
- ↑ Shokubutsu Mei-I, 155 (1895).
- ↑ See Maximowicz, loc. cit., and Bretschneider, European Bot. Discoveries in China, i. 622 (1898).
- ↑ Forest Flora of Japan, 60 (1894).