Part 11

The rare fitness of this simile might pass unheeded if we did not study trees first and poetry afterwards.

In Europe ash seeds were used for medicine. They were called lingua avis by the old apothecaries, on account of a fancied resemblance to the tongues of birds; young ash seeds were also pickled and used in salads. Evelyn says the wood “is of all others the sweetest of our forest fuelling, and the fittest for ladies’ chambers.”

The horsechestnuts, the maples, and the ashes are the three genera of large trees which have opposite leaf-scars.

CHAPTER V

THE WALNUTS AND HICKORIES

1. Butternut. 2. Black Walnut. 3. Pignut Hickory. 4. Mockernut Hickory. 5. Shagbark Hickory. 6. Bitternut Hickory. ]

Chapter V

THE WALNUTS AND HICKORIES

Family Juglandaceæ

Few trees are more lofty and majestic than certain species of walnuts and hickories. They are stately in summer, but in winter, when the foliage has gone and every branch and twig is thrown in black relief against the sky, their beauty is truly imposing.

Both walnuts and hickories are valuable timber trees, and the nuts of several species are sweet and edible.

Two genera of this family are found in America,—Juglans and Hicoria. Of the first genus there are two species native in the Northeastern States,—the butternut and the black walnut.

Juglans cinerea]

A low, spreading tree, branching a short way up the trunk. Gray bark, slightly fissured, the clefts not running together. Recent shoots downy, with a fringe of hair over the leaf-scar. Leaf-scars conspicuous, alternate, the bundle-scars horseshoe (U) shaped. Light brown buds destitute of scales. Terminal bud encloses pistillate flowers, which are fertilized by the staminate flowers enclosed in the pineapple-like bud over the leaf-scars. These staminate flowers hang in one long catkin, which drops off after shedding the pollen in spring. The superposed buds (two or three over the leaf-scars) contain the side branches. Pith light brown and chambered,—by cutting a twig lengthwise this can be seen,—a characteristic of the Juglans family.

Juglans cinerea

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Among all the native trees, the butternut is perhaps the most interesting for winter study. The naked buds, the irregular leaf-scars, with horseshoe bundle-scars, the superposed buds containing the lateral branches and the queerly marked buds of the staminate flowers, the chambered pith, and the little fringes of down on the stems, every structural detail of this tree is interesting and unusual. The butternut is one of the few trees among the Juglandaceæ which is not tall and beautiful in outline. It is a low tree, with wide-spreading, rather straggling branches, frequently ill shapen and uncouth in appearance. It is usually associated in our minds with country lanes, and growing by the walls and fences bordering open pastures and farm lands, and in these surroundings it seems pleasing and appropriate; but when we find it planted in parks and cultivated grounds it seems commonplace and insignificant. It is found in all the New England States, in New York, and in Pennsylvania. Very large specimens grow in the valley of the Connecticut River.

The wood of the butternut is light brown in color, it is light, soft, and easily worked, and is much used for furniture, gunstocks, and for the interior finish of houses. The inner bark is used medicinally, and a dye is made from the bark and nutshells. An excellent pickle is made from the young nuts, and the kernels are sweet and edible, although rather rich and oily. Professor Gray tried the experiment of making sugar from the sap of the butternut. He found that it took four trees to yield nine quarts of sap (one and a quarter pounds of sugar), the amount that one sugar maple yields.

The generic name, Juglans, comes from Jovis glans, the nut of Jove, in reference to the excellence of the fruit, and the specific name, cinerea (ash-colored), probably alludes to the color of the bark.

Juglans nigra]

A large tree, 50 to 120 feet high, with spreading branches and rough bark, darker in color than that of the butternut. The buds are gray instead of light brown like those of the butternut, and they are shorter. The twigs are smooth in winter, without hair, and the pith is chambered. Alternate, conspicuous leaf-scars. Characteristic difference between the two trees is that the fringe of hair over the leaf-scar in the butternut is absent in the black walnut.

The black walnut is a striking contrast to the butternut. It is tall and erect, with a broad, spacious head and vigorous, wide-spreading branches. The bark is much darker and rougher than that of the butternut, and the buds are smaller, and gray rather than yellowish in color, like those of the other species.

Juglans nigra

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The wood is heavy, strong, and durable, and dark brown in color. It takes polish well and is much used in cabinet making, boat-building, interior house finishing, and for gunstocks and coffins. A valuable wood in many ways, but the passing of the fashion for black walnut furniture is not to be regretted. It has been cut most recklessly in our forests during the last twenty-five years, and already it has been almost exterminated in the Mississippi Basin. Individual trees are now sold where there used to be whole tracts of black walnut forests. In Tennessee last year, dealers were buying stumps of old walnut trees which had been left when the trees were first cut, in the early days of the lumber trade. Each stump brought more money than the whole tree originally sold for.

Its fruit is edible, and an oil is made from its kernels. A kind of bread has also been made from the kernels of these nuts, and the husks are used as a dye.