Tuesday, April 5, 2011

hickory scented?




"As I walked, I was intoxicated with the slight spicy odor of the hickory buds and the bruised bark of the black birch," wrote Henry David Thoreau in the spring of 1850.

When I found the hickory leaves budding out near the river, I thought of the Thoreau quote and leaned over to crimp a leaf and sniff.

Hickory? Something wasn't right. I sniffed again and realized it wasn't hickory scented at all. I was wrong. But what else has compound leaves?

I remembered Dr. Jack Sharp's advice. When trying to ID a tree, search the ground below it for clues. Scouring the site, I soon found a couple of last year's decaying black husked fruits on the ground nearby.

Ahh. It smelled like walnut. Dark. Earthy. Finger staining black walnut.

But of course. Walnut.

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