NORTH CAROLINA SHAGBARK Carolince-septentri onalis, Ashe). N to 80 feet; rarely 80 feet. Slender tree with oblong, narrow head of gray limbs ending in slim, red brown twigs. Bark shaggy, light gray, thin, peeling in elastic, tough strips. Wood reddish brown, tough, hard, strong, used for same purposes as that of northern shagbark. Leaves 4 to 8 inches long, of 3 or 5 narrow, tapering leaflets, dark green above lined with yellow-green, lustrous, turning yellow. Flow
ers golden, pubescent; staminate catkins axillary; pistillate paired, terminal, inconspicuous. Fruit a prominently angled nut, flattened at apex, in thin, rough, red-brown husk, that splits in 4 parts, to base. Shell thin; kernel sweet, light brown. Dist.: Limestone uplands of western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee, and into northern Georgia and central Alabama.