ide-spreading head, with a stout and stiffish spray.
At its best the butternut is a picturesque and even beautiful tree.

=Bark.=--Bark of trunk dark gray, rough, narrow-ridged and wide-furrowed
in old trees, in young trees smooth, dark gray; branchlets brown gray,
with gray dots and prominent leaf-scars; season's shoots greenish-gray,
faint-dotted, with a clammy pubescence. The bruised bark of the nut
stains the skin yellow.

=Winter Buds and Leaves.=--Buds flattish or oblong-conical, few-scaled,
2-4 buds often superposed, the uppermost largest and far above the
axil. Leaves pinnately compound, alternate, 1-1-1/2 feet long,
viscid-pubescent throughout, at least when young; rachis enlarged at
base; stipules none; leaflets 9-17, 2-4 inches long, about half as wide,
upper surface rough, yellowish when unfolding in spring, becoming a dark
green, lighter beneath, yellow in autumn; outline oblong-lanceolate,
serrate; veins prominent beneath; apex acute to acuminate; base obtuse
to rounded, somewhat inequilateral, sessile, except the terminal
leaflet; stipels none.

=Inflorescence.=--May. Appearing while the leaves are unfolding, sterile
and fertile flowers on the same tree,--the sterile from terminal or
lateral buds of the preceding season, in single, unbranched, stout,
green, cylindrical, drooping catkins 3-6 inches long; calyx irregular,
mostly 6-lobed, borne on an oblong scale; corolla none; stamens 8-12,
with brown anthers: fertile flowers sessile, solitary, or several on a
common peduncle from the season's shoots; calyx hairy, 4-lobed, with 4
small petals at the sinuses; styles 2, short; stigmas 2, large,
feathery, diverging, rose red.

=Fruit.=--Ripening in October, one or several from the same footstalk,
about 3 inches long, oblong, pointed, green, downy, and sticky at first,
dark brown when dry: shells sculptured, rough: kernel edible, sweet but
oily.

=Horticultural Value.=--Hardy throughout New England; grows in any
well-drained soil, but prefers a deep, rich loam; seldom reaches its
best under cultivation. Trees of the same age are apt to vary in vigor
and size, dead branches are likely to appear early, and sound trees 8 or
10 inches in diameter are seldom seen; the foliage is thin, appears late
and drops early; planted in private grounds chiefly for its fruit; only
occasionally offered in nurseries, collected plants seldom successful.
Best grown from seed planted where the tree is to stand, as is evident
fr