Shagbark Hickory Information

Geography and Habitat

• Shagbark hickory grows wild from extreme southern sections of Quebec into New England and New York State. Its range extends from southern Maine southward through western portions of southern states like Virginia and the Carolinas, ending in the northern halves of Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi. The distribution of shagbark hickory ranges into the eastern portion of the Great Plains as far north as southern Minnesota. The tree inhabits damp valleys and the drier upland forests, mixing there with other hardwood species.

Leaves

• The leaves of shagbark hickory are compound, with a big stem acting like a central axis, to which leaflets attach. The central stem, termed a rachis, measures between 8 and 14 inches. While there are sometimes as many as seven leaflets, each as long as 6 inches on the rachis, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources states there are usually five. The leaflets are dark green, normally just becoming paler when fall sets in, but in some years, they change to gaudy yellow shades.

Bark

• The gray-brown bark of the shagbark hickory gives away the species' identity like that of very few trees in the eastern forest. Perhaps only the American sycamore has a more recognizable bark. The bark starts out smooth on young shagbarks, but with age it develops buckling vertical strips that separate from the trunk at either the top or bottom, with some not attached at either junction. These curly strips give shagbark hickory its name, and they prove to be quite interesting, especially in winter when the leaves are gone.

Nuts

• The hickory nuts lure wildlife to your property with a sweet taste that appeals to many mammals and birds. The husk is thick and rounded, splitting apart into four separate sections when the fruit inside ripens in autumn. Hickory nuts were a staple of the diets of Native Americans and the settlers who began to displace them in America. Wild shagbark hickory trees and their cultivated forms provide these edible nuts to the market.