Shellbark Hickory                        KA-ri-a la-sin-i-O-sa

• Broadleaf deciduous, high branching tree, 60-80 ft (18-24 m) tall, or more, straight slender trunk with shaggy bark.  Leaves alternate, pinnately compound (odd-pinnate), usually 7 leaflet, occasionally 5 or 9, oblong-lanceolate, 10-20 cm long, acuminate, margin serrate and hairy but not in tufts, dark yellow green and pubescent below.  Flowers are monoecious, male (staminate) and female (pistilate) flowers on the same tree; males flowers are 5-8(20) cm long, yellow-green catkins; females flowers are short, in clusters at the end of the branches, appearing in mid-spring.  Fruit ellipsoid or subglobose, 4-7 cm long, splitting along 4 lines when ripe, husk 6-12 mm thick; the enclosed nut is 4 angled, thick-shelled, hard, kernel sweet, edible.
• Sun
• Hardy to USDA Zone 5         Native range from New York to southern Ontario and Iowa, south to Tennessee and Oklahoma; occurs in moist to wet sites.
• laciniosa: slashed or torn into narrow divisions, apparently a reference to the plates of its shaggy bark.
• Oregon State Univ. campus: east of Dixon Lodge, next to the sidewalk along Jefferson Ave.