Trees

Black Walnut (Juglans nigra)

The black walnut trees, like the ones we have at Toe River Club, are native to eastern North America.

Walnut tree in front of cabinBlack walnut is the tallest of the walnuts, with the potential to reach 100 feet.

 

 

 

 

Walnut tree leaves 02

 

 

 

 

 

The compound leaves of walnuts are spaced alternately along the branches. Each leaf is divided into an odd number — usually from 7 to 23 — of small yellowish green leaflets. Walnuts are monoecious (having both male and female flowers on the same tree), with male flowers borne in long, unbranched, drooping catkins and female flowers borne singly or in short spikes.

 

The walnut fruit is a nut, borne singly or in pairs, and enclosed in a solid, non-splitting green husk. The edible, oil-rich nut kernal is enclosed inWalnuts a thick, hard, ridged, black shell (so edible nut meat inside a black shell inside a green husk). You can definitely eat the nut fruit from our Toe River walnut trees when ripe, typically in late fall. You really want to wait until the fruit falls to the ground, as WalnutBlack walnut shell inside green huskthat is the indication that they are ready to eat (and getting them off these tall trees is difficult). The husk is ready to remove if you can dent it with a thumbnail. Many suggestions exist online to get to the meat, but you can just stomp them with hard shoes, use a sheller (an antique machine to take off husks), or roll a car over them to crack the green husk. Then use a hammer or vise to get through the brown shell to the edible meat within.

However, when you buy walnuts at the store, you are almost certainly buying nuts from the Persian or English walnut tree (J. regia), which originated in Persia. The reason is that nuts of the black walnut are so hard, and hulling the nut to get to the edible fruit is so difficult, that no commercial processing exists for the black walnut. Although J. regia originated in Persia, currently, almost 99% of the US English walnut production comes from the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys of California.

Deciduous trees can be harder to identify in the fall and winter with no leaves, but the black walnut is easy! First, the bark is grey-black and deeply furrowed. Second, the buds are greyish and fuzzy. But most fun way is to look for a place where a leaf has fallen off, and observe the leaf scar. It looks like the smiling face of a monkey!

Walnut tree bark2-1-12-black-walnut-leaf-scar-img_78942-1-12-black-walnut-bud-img_7867

Black walnut heartwood is heavy, hard, strong, and durable, with a chocolate-brown color prized by furniture manufacturers. Black walnut trees are prized for their lumber, and a large, straight tree can be harvested for $10,000-$20,000.

The black walnut has some other interesting facts! First, it secretes a substance, Jugalone, from its fallen leaves into the soil that keeps other plants from growing near it. Therefore, flowers or vegetable gardens should not be planted under the leaf canopy of a black walnut. Second, the husk of the black walnut can be used for dyes used in paints and hair. The resulting ink has good archival properties, and was used by many artists, including Rembrandt, and da Vinci.