Hickory

Hickory Temporal range: 85.8–0 Ma PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N Late Cretaceous - present [1]
Hickory at Morton Arboretum Accession 29-U-10
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
Clade:	Tracheophytes
Clade:	Angiosperms
Clade:	Eudicots
Clade:	Rosids
Order:	Fagales
Family:	Juglandaceae
Subfamily:	Juglandoideae
Tribe:	Juglandeae
Subtribe:	Caryinae
Genus:	Carya Nutt.
Type species
Carya tomentosa (Poir.) Nutt.[2]

Hickory is a common name for trees composing the genus Carya, which includes around 18 species.^[3] Five or six species are native to China, Indochina, and India (Assam), as many as twelve are native to the United States, four are found in Mexico, and two to four are native to Canada.^[4][5] A number of hickory species are used for their edible nuts, lumber or other wood and woodcraft products .

Hickories are temperate forest trees with pinnately compound leaves and large nuts. Hickory flowers are small, yellow-green catkins produced in spring. They are wind-pollinated and self-incompatible. The fruit is a globose or oval nut, 2–5 cm (0.8–2.0 in) long and 1.5–3 cm (0.6–1.2 in) diameter, enclosed in a four-valved husk, which splits open at maturity. The nut shell is thick and bony in most species, and thin in a few, notably the pecan (C. illinoinensis); it is divided into two halves, which split apart when the seed germinates.