Juglans cinerea, commonly known as
Butternut or
White Walnut, is a species of
walnutWalnuts are plants in the family Juglandaceae. They are deciduous trees, 10–40 meters tall , with pinnate leaves 200–900 millimetres long , with 5–25 leaflets; the shoots have chambered pith, a character shared with the wingnuts but not the hickories in the same family.The 21 species...
native to the eastern United States and southeast
CanadaCanada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, from southern
QuebecQuebec is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking identity and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
west to
MinnesotaMinnesota is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. The twelfth largest state by area in the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.2 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the...
, south to northern
AlabamaAlabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States of America. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its...
and southwest to northern
ArkansasArkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquin name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares a border with six states, with its eastern border largely defined by the Mississippi River. Its diverse geography ranges from the mountainous regions of the...
. It is absent from most of the
Southern United StatesThe Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, Down South, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive region in the southeastern and south-central United States...
. It is a
deciduousDeciduous means falling off at maturity or tending to fall off and is typically used in reference to trees or shrubs that lose their leaves seasonally and to the shedding of other plant structures such as petals after flowering or fruit when ripe...
treeA tree is a perennial woody plant. It is most often defined as a woody plant that has many secondary branches supported clear of the ground on a single main stem or trunk with clear apical dominance. A minimum height specification at maturity is cited by some authors, varying from 3 m to...
growing to 20 m tall, rarely 30 m, and 40-80 cm stem diameter, with light gray
barkBark is the outermost layers of stems and roots of woody plants. Plants with bark include trees, woody vines and shrubs. Bark refers to all the tissues outside of the vascular cambium and is a nontechnical term. It overlays the wood and consists of the inner bark and the outer bark. The inner...
. The
leavesIn botany, a leaf is an above-ground plant organ specialized for photosynthesis. For this purpose, a leaf is typically flat and thin. There is continued debate about whether the flatness of leaves evolved to expose the chloroplasts to more light or to increase the absorption of carbon dioxide. In...
are
pinnatePinnate is a term used to describe feather-like or multi-divided features arising from both sides of a common axis in plant or animal structures, and comes from the Latin word pinna meaning "feather", "wing", or "fin". A similar term is pectinate, which refers to a comb-like arrangement of parts...
, 40-70 cm long, with 11-17 leaflets, each leaflet 5-10 cm long and 3-5 cm broad.
Juglans cinerea, commonly known as
Butternut or
White Walnut, is a species of
walnutWalnuts are plants in the family Juglandaceae. They are deciduous trees, 10–40 meters tall , with pinnate leaves 200–900 millimetres long , with 5–25 leaflets; the shoots have chambered pith, a character shared with the wingnuts but not the hickories in the same family.The 21 species...
native to the eastern United States and southeast
CanadaCanada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, from southern
QuebecQuebec is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking identity and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
west to
MinnesotaMinnesota is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. The twelfth largest state by area in the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.2 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the...
, south to northern
AlabamaAlabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States of America. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its...
and southwest to northern
ArkansasArkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquin name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares a border with six states, with its eastern border largely defined by the Mississippi River. Its diverse geography ranges from the mountainous regions of the...
. It is absent from most of the
Southern United StatesThe Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, Down South, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive region in the southeastern and south-central United States...
. It is a
deciduousDeciduous means falling off at maturity or tending to fall off and is typically used in reference to trees or shrubs that lose their leaves seasonally and to the shedding of other plant structures such as petals after flowering or fruit when ripe...
treeA tree is a perennial woody plant. It is most often defined as a woody plant that has many secondary branches supported clear of the ground on a single main stem or trunk with clear apical dominance. A minimum height specification at maturity is cited by some authors, varying from 3 m to...
growing to 20 m tall, rarely 30 m, and 40-80 cm stem diameter, with light gray
barkBark is the outermost layers of stems and roots of woody plants. Plants with bark include trees, woody vines and shrubs. Bark refers to all the tissues outside of the vascular cambium and is a nontechnical term. It overlays the wood and consists of the inner bark and the outer bark. The inner...
. The
leavesIn botany, a leaf is an above-ground plant organ specialized for photosynthesis. For this purpose, a leaf is typically flat and thin. There is continued debate about whether the flatness of leaves evolved to expose the chloroplasts to more light or to increase the absorption of carbon dioxide. In...
are
pinnatePinnate is a term used to describe feather-like or multi-divided features arising from both sides of a common axis in plant or animal structures, and comes from the Latin word pinna meaning "feather", "wing", or "fin". A similar term is pectinate, which refers to a comb-like arrangement of parts...
, 40-70 cm long, with 11-17 leaflets, each leaflet 5-10 cm long and 3-5 cm broad. The whole leaf is downy-pubescent, and a somewhat brighter, yellower green than many other tree leaves. The
flowerA flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants . The biological function of a flower is to mediate the union of male sperm with female ovum in order to produce seeds...
s are inconspicuous yellow-green
catkinA catkin or ament is a slim, cylindrical flower cluster, with inconspicuous or no petals, usually wind-pollinated but sometimes insect pollinated . They contain many, usually unisexual flowers, arranged closely along a central stem which is often drooping...
s produced in spring at the same time as the new leaves appear. The
fruitThe term fruit has different meanings dependent on context, and the term is not synonymous in food preparation and biology. Fruits are the means by which flowering plants disseminate seeds, and the presence of seeds indicates that a structure is most likely a fruit, though not all seeds come from...
is a
nutNut is a general term for the large, dry, oily seeds or fruit of some plants. While a wide variety of dried seeds and fruits are called nuts in English, only a certain number of them are considered by biologists to be true nuts. Nuts are an important source of nutrients for both humans and...
, produced in bunches of 2-6 together; the nut is oblong-ovoid, 3-6 cm long and 2-4 cm broad, surrounded by a green husk before maturity in mid autumn. Butternut grows quickly, but is rather short-lived for a tree, rarely living longer than 75 years.
The Butternut is seriously threatened by an introduced
cankerCanker and anthracnose are general terms for a large number of different plant diseases, characterised by broadly similar symptoms including the appearance of small areas of dead tissue, which grow slowly, often over a period of years. Some are of only minor consequence, but others are ultimately...
diseaseA disease or medical condition isan abnormal condition of an organism that impairs bodily functions, associated with specific symptoms and signs...
, caused by the
fungusA fungus is any member of a large group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and molds, as well as the more familiar mushrooms. The Fungi are classified as a kingdom that is separate from plants, animals and bacteria...
Sirococcus clavigignenti-juglandacearumSirococcus clavigignenti-juglandacearum is a mitosporic fungus that causes a lethal canker disease of Butternut trees . Known in the vernacular as butternut canker, it is also known to parasitize other members of the Juglans genus on occasion, and very rarely other related trees including hickories...
. In some areas, 90% of the Butternut trees have been killed. Completely free-standing trees seem better able to withstand the fungus than those growing in dense stands or forest. The fungus is spread by a wide-ranging vector, so isolation of a tree offers no protection.
The species is not listed as threatened federally in the US, but is listed as "Special Concern" in
KentuckyThe Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. Kentucky is a Southern state situated in the Upland South, although the state is infrequently placed, geographically and culturally, in the Midwest. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a...
, "Exploitably Vulnerable" in New York State, and "Threatened" in
TennesseeTennessee is a state located in the Southeastern United States. According to the 2008 census, it has a population of 6,214,888, an increase of nearly 9.5% since 2000. Tennessee is the 14th fastest growing state in the US and is ranked 17th by population. It is ranked 36th by total land area. In...
.
The
Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in CanadaThe Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada ; French: Le Comité sur la situation des espèces en péril au Canada, is an independent committee of wildlife experts and scientists whose "raison d’être is to identify species at risk" in Canada...
placed the Butternut on the endangered species list in Canada in 2005. http://www.sararegistry.gc.ca/species/speciesDetails_e.cfm?sid=793
Uses
The nuts are usually used in baking and making candies, having an oily texture and pleasant flavor.
Butternut wood is light in weight and takes polish well, is highly rot resistant, but is much softer than
Black WalnutThe Eastern Black walnut is a species of flowering tree in the hickory family, Juglandaceae, that is native to eastern North America. It grows mostly in riparian zones, from southern Ontario, west to southeast South Dakota, south to Georgia, northern Florida and southwest to central Texas...
wood. Oiled, the grain of the wood usually shows much light. It is often used to make
furnitureFurniture is the mass noun for the movable objects intended to support various human activities such as seating and sleeping in beds, to hold objects at a convenient height for work using horizontal surfaces above the ground, or to store things...
, and is a favorite of woodcarvers.
Butternut bark and nut rinds were once often used to dye cloth to colors between light yellow and dark brown. To produce the darker colors, the bark is boiled to concentrate the color. This appears to never have been used as a commercial dye, but rather was used to color homespun cloth.
During the American Civil War, the term "butternut" was sometimes applied to Confederate soldiers. Some Confederate uniforms faded from gray to a tan or light brown color. It is also possible that butternut was used to color the cloth worn by a very small number of Confederate soldiers. The resemblance of the tan colored uniforms to butternut-dyed clothing, and the association of butternut dye with home-made clothing, resulted in this derisive nickname.
Butternut bark has mild
catharticIn medicine, a cathartic is a substance which accelerates defecation.This is in contrast to a laxative, which is a substance which eases defecation, usually by softening the stool. It is possible for a substance to be both a laxative and a cathartic...
properties and was once used medicinally in place of
jalapJalap is a cathartic drug consisting of the tuberous roots of Ipomoea purga, a convolvulaceous plant growing on the eastern declivities of the Sierra Madre Oriental of Mexico at an elevation of 5000 to 8000 ft...
, a more expensive cathartic which was imported from Mexico. During the American Revolution, a butternut extract made from the inner bark of the tree was used to prevent
smallpoxSmallpox is an infectious disease unique to humans, caused by either of two virus variants, Variola major and Variola minor. The disease is also known by the Latin names Variola or Variola vera, which is a derivative of the Latin varius, meaning spotted, or varus, meaning "pimple"...
, and to treat
dysenteryDysentery is an inflammatory disorder of the intestine, especially of the colon, that results in severe diarrhea containing mucus and/or blood in the feces. If left untreated, dysentery can be fatal....
and other stomach and intestinal discomfort.
External links