''Carya cordiformis'', the bitternut hickory, also called bitternut or swamp hickory, is a large pecan hickory with commercial stands located mostly north of the other pecan hickories. Bitternut hickory is cut and sold in mixture with the true hickories. It is the shortest-lived of the hickories, living to about 200 years.

Description

It is a large

deciduous In the fields of horticulture and Botany, the term ''deciduous'' () means "falling off at maturity" and "tending to fall off", in reference to trees and shrubs that seasonally shed leaves, usually in the autumn; to the shedding of petals, ...

tree In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, including only woody plants with secondary growth, plants that are ...

, growing up to tall (exceptionally to ), with a trunk up to diameter. The

leaves A leaf ( : leaves) is any of the principal appendages of a vascular plant stem, usually borne laterally aboveground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", while the leaves, st ...

are long, pinnate, with 7–11 leaflets, each leaflet lanceolate, long, with the apical leaflets the largest but only slightly so. The

flower A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants (plants of the division Angiospermae). The biological function of a flower is to facilitate reproduction, usually by providing a mechanis ...

s are small wind-pollinated

catkin A catkin or ament is a slim, cylindrical flower cluster (a spike), with inconspicuous or no petals, usually wind-pollinated (anemophilous) but sometimes insect-pollinated (as in '' Salix''). They contain many, usually unisexual flowers, arrang ...

s, produced in spring. The

fruit In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants that is formed from the ovary after flowering. Fruits are the means by which flowering plants (also known as angiosperms) disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in partic ...

is a very bitter nut, long with a green four-valved cover which splits off at maturity in the fall, and a hard, bony shell. Another identifying characteristic is its bright sulfur-yellow winter bud. It is closely related to the pecan, sharing similar leaf shape and being classified in the same section of the genus ''Carya'' sect. ''Apocarya'', but unlike the pecan, it does not have edible nuts. It is most readily distinguished from the pecan by the smaller number of leaflets, with many leaves having only 7 leaflets (rarely fewer than 9, and often 11–13, in the pecan). Hybrids with the pecan are known, and named ''Carya'' × ''brownii''. A hybrid between the shagbark hickory (''C. ovata'') is also recognized, and is known as Laney's hickory (''Carya'' ×''laneyi'').

Habitat

Bitternut hickory grows in moist mountain valleys along streambanks and in swamps. Although it is usually found on wet bottom lands, it grows on dry sites and also grows well on poor soils low in nutrients. The species is not included as a titled species in the Society of American Foresters forest cover types because it does not grow in sufficient numbers.

Range

Bitternut hickory grows throughout the eastern United States from southwestern New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, and southern Quebec; west to southern Ontario, central Michigan, and northern Minnesota; south to eastern Texas; and east to northwestern Florida and Georgia. It is most common, however, from southern New England west to Iowa and from southern Michigan south to Kentucky. It is probably the most abundant and most uniformly distributed of all the hickories.

Uses

Bitternut is used for lumber and pulpwood. Because bitternut hickory wood is hard and durable, it is used for furniture, paneling, dowels, tool handles and ladders. Like other hickories, the

wood Wood is a porous and fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulose fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin ...

is used for

smoking Smoking is a practice in which a substance is burned and the resulting smoke is typically breathed in to be tasted and absorbed into the bloodstream. Most commonly, the substance used is the dried leaves of the tobacco plant, which have b ...

meat Meat is animal flesh that is eaten as food. Humans have hunted, farmed, and scavenged animals for meat since prehistoric times. The establishment of settlements in the Neolithic Revolution allowed the domestication of animals such as chic ...

, and by Native Americans for making bows. Bitternut hickory seeds are eaten by rabbits, and both its seeds and bark are eaten by other wildlife.

Genetics

Bitternut hickory is a

diploid Ploidy () is the number of complete sets of chromosomes in a cell, and hence the number of possible alleles for autosomal and pseudoautosomal genes. Sets of chromosomes refer to the number of maternal and paternal chromosome copies, respectiv ...

species with two sets of sixteen chromosomes that readily hybridizes with other diploid hickory species with a few named

hican A hican is a tree resulting from a cross between a pecan and some other type of hickory (members of the genus ''Carya'') - or the nut from such a hybrid tree. Such crosses often occur naturally while most such hybrids produce unfilled nuts or ha ...

varieties available. The pecan variety 'Major' has bitternut alleles at two simple sequence repeat loci indicating a cryptic cross that may also have involved ''C. ovata''.

Gallery

File:Bitternutrangemap.jpg, US range map of ''Carya cordiformis'' File:Carya cordiformis bud 2.jpg, Bud File:Carya cordiformis bud.jpg, Bud File:Carya cordiformis leaf.jpg, Leaf File:Carya cordiformis male flowers.jpg, Catkins of male flowers File:Carya cordiformis (Bitternut Hickory) (33323804856).jpg, Bark File:Carya cordiformis leaves.jpg, Branch of a bitternut hickory with developing nuts File:Carya cordiformis (Bitternut Hickory) (37064132791).jpg, Maturing fruit File:Carya cordiformis AA.jpg, ''Carya cordiformis,'' 1940 accession, in fall

References

External links

''Carya cordiformis'' images at the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University Plant Image Database
*Enzenbacher, Tiffany
"Plant Collecting in the Wisconsin Wilds - Part 2."
''Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University'' website, 6 September 2017. Accessed 21 May 2020.
"Roads, winter, Valley Road, hickories, 1900."
''Library Featured Images,'' Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University website, 5 February, 2019. Accessed 21 May 2020. * *

{{Taxonbar, from=Q879016 cordiformis Trees of Eastern Canada Trees of the Eastern United States Hardwood forest plants Trees of the North-Central United States Trees of the Southeastern United States Trees of Ontario Trees of the Northeastern United States Trees of the Great Lakes region (North America) Trees of the South-Central United States Plants described in 1869