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Carya ovata
Also called Upland hickory, Shellbark Hickory, Caryer Ovale, Noyer Tendre
Shagbark hickory is a large deciduous tree of eastern North America, known for its shaggy bark on mature trunks and its edible nuts. It is grown mainly for shade, wildlife and nut harvest, and needs a long time (often decades) to bear reliable crops.
Carya ovata, the shagbark hickory, is a common hickory native to eastern North America, with two varieties. The trees can grow to quite a large size but are unreliable in their fruit output. The nut is consumed by wildlife and historically by Native Americans, who also used the wood.
Shagbark hickory is found throughout most of the eastern United States, but it is largely absent from the southeastern and Gulf Coastal Plains and lower Mississippi Delta areas. An isolated population grows in eastern Canada as far north as Lavant Township, Canadian zone 4b. Scattered locations of shagbark hickory occur in the Sierra Madre Oriental of eastern Mexico.
The nuts are edible with an excellent flavor. They are unsuitable for commercial or orchard production due to the long time it takes for a tree to produce sizable crops and unpredictable output from year to year. The nuts can be used as a substitute for the pecan in colder climates and have nearly the same culinary function. The bark is also used to flavor a maple-style syrup.
Water hickory · Pignut hickory · Pecan · Shellbark hickory · Nutmeg hickory · Red hickory · Sand hickory · Black hickory · Mockernut hickory · Hickory
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Carya ovata by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
