Bitternut hickory C amara

The Bitternut hickory (C amara), sometimes called the White hickory, grows 60 feet high in New Jersey. The husk which covers the nut of this species, has four winged appendages on its upper half, and never hardens like the other sorts, but becomes soft and decays. The shell is thin, but the kernel is so bitter that even the squirrels refuse to eat it. The Water Bitternut (C. aquatica) is a very inferior sort, growing in the swamps and rice fields of the southern states. The leaflets are serrated, and resemble in shape the leaves of the peach tree. Both the fruit and timber are much inferior to those of all the other hickories.