Black hickory

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Black hickory staminate inflorescence

Black hickory fruit

Black hickory

Black hickory bark

Black hickory leaf

Black hickory leaf and fruit

Black hickory buds

Morphology

Trunk

Erect; bark dark gray, fissures shallow to deep, splitting into non-exfoliating strips or plates; wood reddish brown, hard.

Twigs

Reddish brown to grayish brown, rigid, glabrate or rusty-tomentose; leaf scars obtriangular to cordate; buds yellowish brown to reddish brown, ovoid, .2 to .35 inch, apex obtuse to acute, scales appressed-pubescent to tomentose, often with abundant yellow scales.

Leaves

Deciduous, alternate, odd-pinnately compound, 8 to 11.2 inches; petiole .16 to .2 inch, glabrous, glabrate, or pubescent; leaflets (5-)7(-9), obovate to ovate or elliptic, not falcate, 1.2 to 6 inches long, .8 to 3.2 inches wide, base unequally cuneate or rounded, margins serrate, glabrous or with tufts of hairs more or less uniformly spaced, apex acuminate, lower surface light green, hirsute with tufts of hairs primarily on and near veins and scattered yellow scales, upper surface green, glabrous or glabrate; petiolule of terminal leaflet .04 to .16 inch.

Flowers

Inflorescences staminate catkins 3, on wood of the previous or current year, pendent, cylindric, 75-200-flowered, 3.2 to 5.2 inches; peduncles ca. .04 inch, pedicels more or less absent; pistillate spikes terminating new growth, 1-2-flowered; peduncles 0 to .2 inch; pedicels absent. Flowers unisexual, more or less radially symmetric; staminate flowers: sepals 0 or 4, connate proximally; petals absent; stamens 4-6; pistillate flowers: sepals 0 or 4, connate proximally; petals absent; pistil 1, styles 2; stigmas yellow to red.

Fruit

September-October; nuts enclosed in dehiscent husk, 1-2, globose to ovoid, .1.2 to 1.4 inch long, 1 to 1.4 inch wide inch, husk orangish brown to reddish brown, splitting to base or nearly so, slightly winged, sparsely hairy and with scattered scales, .08 to .16 inch thick; nuts tan, nearly globose to ovoid, slightly compressed, ca. 1 to .11 inch, not angled or 2-4-angled; seed 1.

Ecology

Habitat

Well-drained soils in dry upland forests and woodlands, rocky slopes.

Distribution

East 1/5 of Kansas

Additional Notes