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Last week we went to Arlington, Virginia to attend a baby shower for our granddaughter. Since I do not like to drive in the traffic around Washington, D.C., I drive to Harrisburg, and our son, Mark, meets us at the Pennsylvania Game Commission parking lot and drives us to their home.
There were many black marks all over his car and I asked what they were from. His reply was that he had made the mistake of parking the car overnight under a large walnut tree. During the night, there was a wind storm that caused the black walnut hulls to fall from the tree and cling to his car.
After washing his vehicle the next day, Mark found several dents on the roof of the car.
Later in the week, I attended a game warden's retirement meeting at a hunting camp near Huntington. There were many walnut trees on the property and the ground was covered with walnut hulls. It was like walking on marbles, not a good situation for a group of old men and a lady.
Of course, these events led me to write this week's column on the walnut tree.
Our word walnut comes from the pre-historic Germanic word walkhaz, which meant anything or anyone foreign. A walnut is etymologically a foreign nut. Its name alludes to the fact that the nut was regarded by the Germanic people as an exotic import from Southern Europe (their own native nut was the hazel).
North America has six native walnut species with the best known of these the black walnut Juglans nigra, which ranges from Canada to Eastern Texas. Juglans comes from Jovis, Jove's and glans, which meant Jupiter's acorn to the Romans; applied by the Roman writers to this tree because of the excellence of its fruit compared with other masts or acorns.
The word nigra in Latin means black. The Romans called the fruit of the walnut an acorn, which explains what Abraham Cowley, 1618-1667, wrote:
"The walnut then approached, more large and tall
"Her fruit which we a nut, the gods an acorn call;
"Jove's acorn, which does not small praise confess,
"To have called it man's ambrosia had been less."
A walnut has a large kernel that is very oily. The shell is very thick as all native nuts are. The walnut tree's leaves are late in coming out in the spring and are one of the first trees to drop its leaves in the fall. Because of this the tree often stands naked while its neighboring trees are still in full leaf. The leaves are compound, composed of 15 to 21 lance-shaped leaflets all in pairs except at the terminus of the leaf. Other plants do not thrive well under walnut trees, and it is believed this is because of the decaying fallen leaves and the washing into the soil of their astringent properties called juglone.
Older trees also leach juglone into the soil, which inhibits seed germination and growth of new walnut trees, to limit competition for the soil's nutrients.
I read that walnut trees are monoecious and incompletely dioecious, meaning that although they are at least partially self-fertile, which ensures a good nut crop; however, two walnut trees are better than one.
Since I was not sure why two walnut trees are better than one for pollination, I called a retired forester and this is the explanation that he gave: when a flower has all four parts; sepals, petals, stamens (male) and pistol (female), it is said to be a complete flower and if any of the four parts are missing, it is said to be an incomplete flower. However, if it has the male and female parts, it is said to be sexual perfect.
If a male or female part is missing, it is said to be an imperfect flower. An imperfect flower will have only all male or all female parts. When both types of flowers (perfect and imperfect) are produced on the same plant it is said to be monoecious, which is Greek and comes from monos, meaning single and oikos, meaning house or of one household.
If only male flowers are produced on a plant and female flowers produced on another plant, it is said to be dioecious, which is Greek and comes from di, meaning twice; oikos, meaning a house or from two households. Although the walnut tree has both monoecious and dioecious flowers on the same tree, bigger and better nuts are produced when one tree's flowers are fertilized by another tree's flowers, hence the statement two walnut trees are better than one.
The nut that develops while embedded in a round green fleshy fruit is not a true nut but a drupe stone, just as the stones of a peach and plum. The purpose of the nut's meat is to store enough protein to feed the developing embryo. A walnut (21% protein) has more protein than a cow's milk (3.5%); pork (12%); lamb (16%); beef (18%); turkey (20%) and fish (20%), however chicken beats out the walnut with 30%.
Black walnuts were used extensively by the Native Americans. Cracked walnut shells have been dug up at 2,000 year old campsites in the Great Lake region. The Colonists also had many uses for the walnut. One unusual recipe was for pickled walnuts made from the un-ripened nuts in early summer. The recipe read, "Take walnuts between Whitsuntide (the seventh Sunday after Easter) and mid-summer when they are a little bigger than nutmegs."
This meant that the nuts were picked in mid-June.
The extraordinary toughness of the black walnut shell is the major reason it has not had the commercial success of the English walnut. The first problem with the black walnut is to remove the nut from the husk. Some suggest using heavy boots and stomping on the nuts while they lay on the ground; another is to use a vehicle and drive slowly back and forth over the nuts to remove the husk. Our ancestors found that their corn sheller would remove the husk much as it removed the corn kernels from the cob.
Once the husk has been removed the nuts must be picked out of the black inky mess and spread out to dry for several weeks in a dry and well-ventilated area before trying to crack the nuts. Be sure to wear rubber gloves or your hands will be stained for two or three weeks.
It is said that the colonists who disguised themselves as Native Americans during the Boston Tea Party stained their hands and faces with black walnut juice. If this is true, it certainly would not have been hard for the British to identify these individuals because the stain is hard to remove, even after repeated washings. Colonial housewives used the bark of the tree and the hulls of the walnut (both contain tannic acid) to obtain a brown hue for dyeing wool. Today, some trappers use the black walnut husks to darken their traps before using them. In earlier times, nutting parties were held, much like the apple butter stirs, as a time to get together.
They would go into the forest and collect all kinds of nuts for winter storage.
In Colonial times, there was such an abundance of giant black walnut trees growing in the forests that the wood was used for split rail fences. After it was found that the wood is very firm and durable, many tables and chests of drawers were made from the wood. It became the queen of American cabinet woods and the leading wood used in making gun stocks. The Brown Bess musket that was used in the Revolutionary war had walnut stocks and so did the Winchester repeating rifle that won the west.
In the 1800s "to shoulder walnut" meant to enlist as a soldier. In World War I, black walnut was used for airplane propellers.
I will always remember the black walnut cake and icing that Ted Brown's wife, who lived in Farmer's Valley, Troy, made each year. I was fortunate enough to be given slices and it was delicious.
A Black walnut tree demands a premium price, and sometimes, the roots of the tree are dug up and used in the making of many smaller items.
Bill Bower is a retired Pennsylvania Game Commission Wildlife Officer. Read his blog and listen to his podcasts on the outdoors at www.onemaningreen.com.