Happy Mystery Monday! Can you guess what is pictured in the photo below?
The answer to last week’s mystery is shagbark hickory, Carya ovata, pictured in the photo below:
Shagbark hickory is a tall, straight trunked tree reaching over 120”. It is prized for its aromatic wood, which burns long and with little to no smoke. Hickory is used to produce high-quality charcoal that is excellent for barbecuing.
The bark of young hickory trees is smooth, while mature hickory trees have distinctly shaggy bark. When the shagbark hickory’s leaves emerge in Spring, the leaves point in different directions. This display turns into clusters of small, prominently veined, yellow leaves that seem to glow in the sun.
Shagbark hickory fruits from September-October. The nuts form singly or in clusters of up to three. Hickory is cultivated for its sweet, edible nuts, which have been prized as long as humans have lived on this continent.
Shagbark hickory is monoecious – it has both male and female flowers on the same tree. The male flowers are 2-3″ long yellow-green catkins. The female flowers are much shorter. Both flowers appear in Spring.
Mystery Monday is sponsored by the Spy Newspapers and Adkins Arboretum.
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