A tree, frequently 100° and occasionally 150° high, with a straight trunk often clear of branches for 50°—60° and 4°—6° in diameter, thick limbs spreading gradually and forming a comparatively narrow shapely round-topped head of mostly upright rigid branches, and stout branchlets covered at first with pale or rusty matted hairs, dull orange-brown and pilose or puberulous during their first winter, marked by raised conspicuous orange-colored lenticels and elevated pale leaf-scars, gradually growing darker and ultimately light brown. Winter-buds: terminal ovoid, slightly flattened, obliquely rounded at apex, coated with pale silky tomentum, ⅓′ long, with usually 4 obscurely pinnate scales; axillary ⅛′ long, tomentose, their outer scales opening at the apex during the winter. Bark of young stems and branches light brown and covered with thin scales, becoming on old trees 2′—3′ thick, dark brown slightly tinged with red, and deeply divided into broad rounded ridges broken on the surface into thick appressed scales. Wood heavy, hard, strong, rather coarse-grained, very durable, rich dark brown, with thin lighter colored sapwood of 10—20 layers of annual growth; largely used in cabinet-making, the interior finish of houses, gun-stocks, air-planes, and in boat and shipbuilding. Distribution. Rich bottom-lands and fertile hillsides, western Massachusetts to southern Ontario, southern Michigan, southeastern Minnesota, central and northern Nebraska, central Kansas, eastern Oklahoma, and southward to western Florida, central Alabama and Mississippi, and the valley of the San Antonio River, Texas; most abundant in the region west of the Alleghany Mountains, and of its largest size on the western slopes of the high mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee, and on the fertile river bottom-lands of southern Illinois and Indiana, southwestern Arkansas, and Oklahoma; largely destroyed for its valuable timber, and now rare. Occasionally cultivated as an ornamental tree in the eastern United States, and in western and central Europe. × _Juglans intermedia_ Carr., a natural hybrid, of _J. nigra_ with the so-called English Walnut (_J. regia_) has appeared in the United States and Europe, and on the banks of the James River in Virginia has grown to a larger size than any other recorded Walnut-tree. In California a hybrid, known as “Royal,” between _J. nigra_ and _J. Hindsii_ has been artificially produced. 3. Juglans major Hell. Nogal. _Juglans rupestris_ var. _major_ Torr. _Juglans rupestris_ Sarg., in part, not Engelm. [Illustration: Fig. 165]