Walnut

Walnut, a name of German origin, meaning foreign nut, applied to Juglans regia, probably a native of the mountains of Asia, from the Caucasus and Kashmir and Sikkim, to Persia, Lebanon, and Asia Minor. In Sikkim the tree grows at altitudes of from 4,000 to 7,000 feet. Walnut wood is light, a cubic foot weighing only about 47 pounds, it is tough and strong, and takes a good polish. It is the best word for gun-stocks, and being, especially in old trees, beautifully veined, is in request for cabinet-work. The tree has deciduous, glabrous, yellowish-green, pinnate leaves; precocious flowers of which the males are in catkins and the female are borne three together at the end of a branch; and a fruit of an exceptional type. The rectangular tube is adherent, so that the ovary is inferior: there are generally two fleshy stigmas, and the receptacular tube forms a fleshy bitter green "epicarp," which surrounds the "nut" or "endocarp." This so-called epicarp yields a dark-brown dye. When ripe it splits irregularly, so that the fruit is termed "dehiscently drupaceous." The nut has a two-valved woody shell, containing one exalbuminous seed with corrugated cotyledons and a thin, brown, bitter testa. It is pickled whole when green. It ripens by the end of September, and is esteemed as a dessert nut. We import about 260,000 bushels, chiefly from France and Belgium.