Pterocarya stenoptera
Encyclopedia
Pterocarya stenoptera (English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

: Chinese Wingnut; Chinese
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...

: 枫杨) is a small-winged wingnut tree of the Juglandaceae
Juglandaceae
The Juglandaceae, also known as the Walnut Family, is a family of trees, or sometimes shrubs, in the order Fagales. Various members of this family are native to the Americas, Eurasia, and Southeast Asia....

 family. It is originally from Southeast China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

.

Description

P. stenoptera is quite similar to P. fraxinifolia. The major difference lies in the shape of the wings on the fruit: reminiscent of the wings of the common fly, they are connected to the two sides of the walnut shaped fruit, which is about the size of a chickpea
Chickpea
The chickpea is a legume of the family Fabaceae, subfamily Faboideae...

. The wings lie in two different planes.

The fruits develop in the summer on 2.5 dm long catkins, hanging from the distinctly differently textured green foliage. The fruiting catkins are frequently considered desirable from a landscaping perspective.

The foliage is dense, though it can be thinned by pruning. The alternate deciduous leaves are pinnately compound, bearing odd numbers of elliptic-oblong pinnately-veined leaflets with serrate margins.  The bark on the trunk is similar to P. fraxinifolia, but is smoother.

The tree grows rapidly under optimal conditions, easily reaching 70 feet with substantial spreading branches. One tree in Raliegh grew to 25 feet in only six years, with a trunk diameter of fourteen inches. Trunk diameters as large as eight feet have been reported.  The USDA rates this tree as being appropriate in zones 6B - 11.

Taxonomy

Synonyms include: Acer mairei H. Léveillé; Pterocarya chinensis Lavallee; P. esquirolii H. Léveillé; P. japonica Lavallee; P. laevigata Lavallée; P. stenoptera var. brevialata Pampanini; P. stenoptera var. kouitchensis Franchet; P. stenoptera var. sinensis Graebner.

Distribution and habitat

Forests on mountain slopes or riverbanks; near sea level to 1500 m. Anhui, Fujian, Gansu, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hainan, Hebei, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Liaoning, Shaanxi, Shandong, Shanxi, Sichuan, Taiwan, Yunnan, Zhejiang Japan, Korea.

Ecology

P. stenoptera propagates readily from seed that has received approximately three months of cold moist stratification
Stratification (botany)
In horticulture, stratification is the process of pretreating seeds to simulate natural winter conditions that a seed must endure before germination. Many seed species undergo an embryonic dormancy phase, and generally will not sprout until this dormancy is broken...

. Germination is epigeal
Epigeal
Epigeal, epigean, epigeic and epigeous are biological terms describing an organism's activity above the soil surface.In botany, a seed is described as epigeal when the cotyledons of the germinating seed expand, throw off the seed shell and become photosynthetic above the ground...

 and typically requires a little more than ten days. The first true (pinnately compound) leaves appear after the seedling reaches a height of ~6 cm. The young seedlings do well under half-shade and a temperature of ~18ºC (64ºF).

P. stenoptera can also be propagated by cuttings.
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