Carya illinoinensis

Trees, to 44 m. Bark light gray or brownish, ridged with appressed scales or exfoliating with small platelike scales. Twigs tan to reddish brown, slender, hirsute, conspicuously scaly, sometimes becoming glabrous. Terminal buds yellowish brown, oblong, 6-12 mm, hirsute, scaly; bud scales valvate; axillary buds protected by bracteoles fused into hood. Leaves 4-7 dm; petiole 4-8 cm, glabrous to scurfy with short single hairs or scattered fascicles. Leaflets (7-)9-13(-17), lateral petiolules 0-7 mm, terminal petiolules 5-25 mm; blades ovate-lanceolate, often falcate, 2-16 × 1-7 cm, margins finely to coarsely serrate, without tufts of hairs, apex acuminate; surfaces abaxially hirsute or with scattered unicellular and 2-rayed fasciculate hairs, scaly with large peltate scales and small round peltate scales, adaxially without hairs or rarely hirsute with unicellular hairs along midrib, and with scattered 2-6-rayed fasciculate hairs, moderately scaly in spring. Staminate catkins essentially sessile, to 18 cm, stalks with small capitate-glandular trichomes; anthers sparsely pilose. Fruits dark brown, ovoid-ellipsoid, not compressed, 2.5-6 × 1.5-3 cm; husks rough, 3-4 mm thick, dehiscing to base or nearly so, sutures winged; nuts tan to brown and mottled with black patches, ovoid-ellipsoid, not compressed, not angled, smooth; shells thin. Seeds sweet. 2n = 32.

Water moderately, allowing the top 3cm to dry out between watering.

Carya Illinoinensis

Carya illinoinensis

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