Leaves 12′—14′ long, with slender petioles and rachis slightly or densely pubescent with fascicled hairs, becoming glabrous or nearly glabrous, and 7 or rarely 5 thin finely serrate leaflets, long-pointed at apex, and gradually narrowed, cuneate and unsymmetrical at base, at first hoary tomentose below and pubescent above, becoming dark green and lustrous on the upper surface and pale and slightly pubescent on the lower surface, especially on the stout midrib, the terminal oblong-obovate with a stalk ⅕′—⅗′ in length, or nearly sessile, of the same shape and often smaller than the nearly sessile upper leaflets, 4′—5′ long and 2′—2½′ wide, and much larger than the lanceolate lower leaflets. Flowers: staminate opening after the leaves have grown nearly to their full size, in slender puberulous aments 4′—4½′ long; bract of the flower ovate, lanceolate, ciliate on the margins with long white hairs mixed with stipitate glands, a third longer than the ciliate calyx-lobes; stamens 4, anthers red, covered with long rigid white hairs; pistillate in short spikes, their involucre and bracts densely clothed with white hairs. Fruit broadly obovoid, smooth, glabrous or puberulous, covered with scattered white scales, 1½′—1¾′ long, about 1¼′ in diameter, the husk ⅕′ to nearly ¼′ thick, opening freely to the base usually only by two sutures; nut ellipsoidal or slightly obovoid, little compressed, rounded at the ends, tinged with red, with a shell ⅙′—⅕′ thick; seed small and sweet. A tree 60°—75° tall with a trunk occasionally 3° in diameter, stout often pendulous branches forming a narrow round-topped head, and slender reddish brown lustrous branchlets puberulous or pubescent when they first appear, becoming glabrous or nearly glabrous by the end of their first season. Winter-buds: terminal acute, about ½′ long, the outer scales pubescent, the inner covered with appressed pale hairs and ciliate on the margins; axillary buds ovoid and rounded at apex or subglobose. Bark close, pale, only slightly ridged. Distribution. Low wet woods; Louisiana to southern Arkansas, and in northwestern Mississippi (bluffs, Yazoo County); most abundant in western Louisiana from the neighborhood of the coast to the valley of Red River, and in Tangipahoa Parish east of the Mississippi River. Passing into var. _callicoma_ Sarg., differing in the thinner husk of the fruit and in the bright red color of the unfolding leaves. Distribution. Low wet woods; valley of the Calcasieu River (near Lake Charles), western Louisiana to that of the Neches River (near Beaumont), Texas; in western and southern Mississippi (Warren, Adams, Hinds, Lafayette, Copiah, Lowndes and Oktibbeha Counties). 11. Carya pallida Ashe. [Illustration: Fig. 180]