Autumn Walnuts and Hickories

     Black walnut and shagbark hickory trees are more visible in October than any other time of year.  And it's their nuts that make them noticeable.  I see their hard fruits lying broken and crushed on country roads, while others still hang in the trees that produced them. 
     These two kinds of trees have some characteristics in common, including being abundant in southeastern Pennsylvania, thriving best in moist, rich bottomland soil, and having open crowns, compound leaves, nuts developing in protective, green husks and yellow foliage in autumn.  The nuts of both species are as much a part of autumn as colored leaves and migrating birds.  And both species range from New England to Minnesota and south to northern Florida and Texas.  But each of these tree species also has its own traits that make it outstanding.  
     Black walnut leaves drop early in fall, making those trees practically bare by October.  Green-husked, nearly tennis-ball-sized nuts still hanging from their twig moorings are easily visible then.  But the hard, dark, wrinkled-shelled nut inside is difficult to crack open.  The bark of this walnut, incidentally, is deeply grooved.
     The most outstanding feature of maturing shag-bark hickories is their shaggy-looking bark that peels away in long, narrow strips that are loose and curled up at both ends, but still attached to the tree in the middle of each plate.  The nuts of this hickory are up to two inches across and the green husk of each nut splits into four parts at maturity, revealing the white-shelled nut inside. 
     Gray squirrels are the only critters in this area able to chew through the green husks and inner nut shells of both black walnut and shagbark hickory fruits.  Only they have teeth sharp enough and jaw muscles strong enough to be able to do so.  I often see gray squirrels with a walnut or a hickory nut in their mouths and dashing about looking for a place to bury those fruits in the soil for winter use.  Some of those nuts are never recovered and eaten.  They sprout into new trees: Thus the squirrels insured their own future food supplies.    
     American crows, blue jays, white-footed mice and other critters can ingest some of the nut meat from those nuts crushed on rural roadsides, at the creatures' own risk.  Those cracked nuts, therefore, offer an additional supply of nutritious food for those animals.
     The annual, abundant supply of nuts on black walnuts and shagbark hickories are another attractive, interesting part of fall here, particularly during October.  And they are food for squirrels and other wildlife in fall, going into winter.  I look for them each October.