Carya cordiformis
Leaves are alternate, compound with five to nine leaflets.
The bitternut
hickory is a tall slender tree, 60 to 80 feet tall. It is found on moist sites on upper flood
plains and at the bottom of slopes. It is widely distributed over the eastern United States as far
west as Kansas and Nebraska.
The tree has
pinnately compound leaves from 6 to 9 inches long and composed of from seven to eleven leaflets.
The individual leaflets are more slender than those of the other hickories except the pecan.
The fruit is a medium-sized nut about 1 inch long with a thin, light green husk. The nut itself has a thin, brittle, creamy colored shell with a reddish-coated kernel, very bitter in taste.
Although the
bark is made up of very fine platelike scales, it is much smoother than the shagbark hickory. On young branches it is gray in color, slightly ridged
and often tinged with yellow. On larger branches and trunk it is granite gray and coarser
ridge.
