There are about a dozen
species of hickory found in Alabama, which is all but a couple of those in North
America and most of those in the world; although none of the nine natural
hybrids are reported from Alabama although the two best of them are available
from nurseries due to also having eatable nuts.Pecan, Carya illinoensis (Wangenh.) K. Koch, is the state nut of Alabama, although the
fruit is technically a tryma, which is a nutlike drupe.Even though hickories may be easy to
recognize as a group due to the nuts and even the diamond pattern of the bark,
individually it can be as hard to distinguish the species of hickory as it is for some of
the red oaks, Quercus L., espcially considering how many varieties of one species are considered synonymous with another species. The keys are as minute as the
scales on the buds where the pattern is either imbricate (like roof shingles) or
valvate (like a clam shell) with respective examples of pignut hickory, C. glabra (Mill.) Sweet, and bitternut hickory, C. cordiformis (Wangenh.) K. Koch.My dendrology professor even had to key out a
nutmeg hickory, C. myristicaeformis(Michx. f.) Nutt., including using range maps, while about the easiest to recognize is shagbark hickory, C. ovata (Mill.) K. Koch, except where people not following the principles of Leave No Trace (LNT) peel all the loose pieces of bark off the tree.Most of the hickories can be identified or at least
narrowed down by using leaflet numbers and/or fruit size/shape as keys.For example most have 5 and/or 7 leaflets
while pecan and water hickory, C.
aquatica (Michx. f.) Nutt., which is also known as bitter pecan have 9 or more leaflets.Shellbark hickory, C. lancinosa (Michx. f.) G. Don, has by far the largest nut, even larger than improved
cultivars of pecan, and the Alabama state champion shellbark hickory is 101 feet
tall, 102 inches around, and has an average limb spread of 104 feet and it is located in the Hayes Nature Preserve in Huntsville, which is also home to the state champion water tupelo, Nyssa aquatica L.Sand hickory, C. pallida (Ashe) Engl. & Graebn., can be identified by the pale underside of the leaf
while mockernut hickory, C. tomentosa (Lam.) Nutt.,
has a specific epithet that refers to the fuzzy leaves although it is considered to be a synonym of Caryaalba (L.) Nutt.The state champion mockernut hickory can be
seen at the Jackson County Park where it is inside the fence around the pavilion
on the right just after the one way loop begins on the way to the boat ramp;
the size is 100 feet tall, and 97 inches around with an average limb spread of 86
feet.Interestingly a former state champion
flowering dogwood, Cornus florida L., known as the Heritage Dogwood and touted as the oldest dogwood in Alabama can also be seen on the adjacent walking trail that includes an extensive planting of native azaleas, Rhododendron L., as well as many other flowering plants.A few other hickories not yet mentioned have
questionable taxonomic status, including southern shagbark, C. carolinae-septentrionalis (Ashe) Engl. & Graebn., and red hickory, C. ovalis (Wangenh.) Sarg., or barely ranges east into Alabama, like black hickory, C. texana Buckley, while the virtually identical scrub hickory, C. flordana Sarg.,
is only found in the central Florida peninsula.
The other kinds of hickory with Alabama state champions that are not local to northeast Alabama include bitternut hickory reaching 100 feet height, 42 inches circumference, and 66 feet of limb spread, nutmeg hickory with 89 feet height, 69 inches circumference, and 38 feet of limb spread, pignut hickory at 110 feet tall, 155 inches around, and 76 feet of canopy spread, red hickory at 85 feet tall, 36 inches around, and 38 feet across the dripline, shagbark growing 119 feet tall, 92 inches around, and with a shade about 67 feet wide, water hickory the tallest at 136 feet tall, 152 inches girth, and 78 feet of limb spread, and finally pecan with a height of 118 feet, the largest girth at 228 inches, and widest limb spread of 134 feet where the comparison in sizes were just with the other species of hickory. This leaves sand hickory as one of the most common without a state champion. The best hickory for nuts is obviously pecan, while shellbark and shagbark are the next best as well as a couple hybrids between these three species Carya ×nussbaumeri Sarg. [illinoinensis × laciniosa] and Carya ×dunbarii Sarg. [laciniosa × ovata]. The others have nuts that are either to bitter to eat or to small to be worth the trouble of trying to extract the meats from the thick shelled nuts except for survival situations. William Bartram describes the use of hickory nuts by the Indians including hickory milk and hickory meal, while this use is indicated by archeological evidence collected in Fort Payne Alabama where US 11 will be rerouted after a new bridge is built over Willis Creek.
