CA'RYA, a genus of plants belonging to the natural order -Tuglan dacece. The species are North American trees, comprehending the various kinds of Hickory. This genus was formerly combined with Juglans, or the true Walnut; but it is distinguished by the shell of its nuts not being deeply furrowed, and by the catkins of the male flowers growing in threes. This must not be confounded with Careya, a genus of Indian Myrtacece.
Several species of Hickory are recognised by botanists; but, accord ing to Michaux, the timber of all of them is so similar in quality that it is impossible to distinguish it. The bark of the Hickory is in all cases remarkable for the lozenge-shaped arrangement of its woody tissue. The wood is coarse-grained, very heavy, exceedingly tough and strong, and red at the heart; but on the other hand it decays quickly when exposed to the weather, and it is subject to be attacked by worms. It is on these accounts chiefly employed for the shafts and springs of carriages, for large screws, such as those of bookbinders' presses, for bows, chair-backs, whip-handles, wooden-cogged wheels, hoops for casks, and a variety of similar purposes. When burnt, hickory-wood consumes slowly, gives out a great heat, and forms a heavy coal, which remains glowing for a long while. It is considered to be upon the whole the beat of all woods for fuel : it has however the fault of crackling and scattering about its sparks.
C. olirceformis, the Pecan or Pecans. Nut (Juglans angustifolia, 'Hortus liewensia'). This is a swamp species, with a slender stem, sometimes as much RS 70 feet high. Its leaves are a foot to 18 inches long; their stalks are downy ; the leaflets, which are 2 or 3 inches long, or as much as 5 inches on very strong shoots, are taper-pointed and firmly serrated. Their nuts are oblong, very smooth, angular in only a alight degree, about l It inch long, and thinner shelled than the other sorts. The kernel is good to eat, and by far the best of the hickories; on this account the nuts are a small article of North American trade. The Pecan Nut is found in Upper Louisiana and New Orleans. It is common on the banks of rivers in Missouri, Illinois, and Arkansas. It does not occur, except in straggling speci mens, more than 200 miles above the mouth of the Ohio.
C. sulcata (Juglana laciniosa, Michaux), Thick-Shell-Bark Hickory, Springfield or Gloucester Nut, is very common in all the low grounds, adjoining the Ohio and its tributaries, where, along with three-thorned gleditechias, black walnuts, Virginian bird-cherries, American elms, planes, and different species of Acer, it forms dense forests ; it is seldom found west of the Alleghenies. Its trunk is as much as 80 feet high, on which it has a noble spreading head. Its bark, like that of some of the other hickories, strips off in ribands from 1 to 3 feet long, which separate at their extremities and curl backwards, finally adhering to the trunk only by their middle. The leaves vary in length from 8 to 20 inches; in form they are very like those of C. alba, but they usually have six or eight leaflets instead of four, which is the invariable number in that species. The nuts are oblong, sharp pointed at each end, with four elevated angles, and a thick shell of a yellowish-brown colour, not white as in C. alba,. They are brought to market in North America under some of the names mentioned above.
C. alba (Juglans squamosa, Michaux), White-Shell-Bark, Shag-Bark, Sealy-Bark Hickory. The shaggy appearance of the bark adverted to in speaking of the last species has caused the above names to be applied to this common species. It extends from South Carolina to the neighbourhood of Portland in the state of New Hampshire, where it is said to disappear. It is the most slender-stemmed of all the hickories, its trunk being sometimes 80 or 90 feet high and not more than 2 feet in diameter, and is described as a magnificent tree in its native forests. The young buds are woody, and slightly orange coloured. The leaves are often 20 inches long ; they have only four leaflets and an odd one, which are smooth and bright green above, finely downy on the under side, and serrated at the edge. The nuts are whitish, nearly round, hardly pointed at each end, angular, com pressed, thick-shelled, remarkably small in proportion to the size of the fruit with its fleshy rind upon it. The kernel is next in quality to that of the Pecan Nut. They form a common article of market commerce.