Hickory

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online.Trees in the genus Carya are commonly known as Hickory, derived from the Powhatan of Virginia. The genus includes 17-19 species of deciduous trees with pinnately compound leaves and large nuts. A dozen species are native to North America (11-12 in the United States, 2-4 in Canada, and 1 in Mexico), and 10-24 species from China and Indochina. Another Asian species, Beaked Hickory, previously listed as Carya sinensis, is now treated in a separate genus Annamocarya, as Annamocarya sinensis. Hickory flowers are small yellow-green catkins produced in spring. They are wind-pollinated and self-incompatible. The fruit is a globose or oval nut, 2-5 cm (0.79-2.0 in) long and 1.5-3 cm (0.59-1.2 in) diameter, enclosed in a four-valved husk which splits open at maturity. The nut shell is thick and bony in most species, thin in a few, notably C. illinoinensis; it is divided into two halves which split apart when the seed germinates.