In this little reference posting, I'd like to have the four walnut trees we find on the streets here. I've read lots of text now, and seen lots of photos, but I'm not really getting it. Juglans regia I don't need help with this. It's very different from the other walnuts in having mostly 5-leaflet leaves and large leaflets. Even on this one where the terminal leaflet seems to be the largest, which is more the case for Carya, there was a helpful nut around to make it very clear that this is walnut. It even has the Aceria erinea mite galls. Juglans ailantifolia This is supposed to have the longest leaves and largest leaflets. It has the largest cluster of fruits, and the stems, leaves and fruits are fuzzy. I'm pretty sure this is an example of Japanese walnut. Juglans nigra I think this has the smallest leaflets, and the most variation in leaflet size, with the smallest ones at the leaf tips. Several leaves on this tree had an even number of leaflets. These nuts are rough but not fuzzy or sticky, and for black walnut, they're not supposed to be. I always thought this was black walnut, but I'm not certain of that, particularly since it doesn't look much different to me from the tree around the corner, which is supposed to be Juglans cinerea. Nothing I read encouraged me to want to open the nut to find out. The gnome wasn't home to ask. Is this Juglans cinerea? [Edited - no, it seems it's Juglans nigra] I'm not at all sure this is butternut. I can't even tell if it's the same as the tree above, around the corner. But it's exactly where Straley in Trees of Vancouver says there is supposed to be one of these. I've read conflicting things about butternut - whether it is or is not supposed to have fuzzy parts. There is nothing fuzzy about this tree. Maybe the leaflets are a more uniform size than the previous tree? It doesn't have grey bark, which is supposed to give J. cinerea its name. I will be a lot less confused if this is black walnut. And what is this? [Edited - also seems it's Juglans nigra] There are actually supposed to be two Juglans Cinerea. The location is given as "on the western corner of Jervis St and Nelson St (in the lane on Jervis St between Comox St and Nelson St)". The previous tree is on the corner of the lane on Jervis. The other could be the one I listed as Juglans nigra, which is around the corner on Comox (with the J. regia in between, on Jervis), or it could be this one snuggled up to the back of the building across the lane (or of course, it could be gone now, maybe even where the Juglans regia is now). I'd have called this black walnut, but the bark looks so different from the others. This also has lots of leaves that have an even number of leaflets.
Right on JJ. regia, ailantifolia, nigra. A large terminal leaflet is normal in J. regia. The others I'd say are also J. nigra, not J. cinerea. The leaflets are too narrow for the latter, and also (obvious in pic #20) the presence of some leaves without a terminal leaflet is also a J. nigra character, not shown by J. cinerea.
Thanks, Michael. I'm feeling better about this already. There's supposed to be a block of J. cinerea - I'll check them out next week when I'm back in town.
Butternut is like the Asian walnuts (more than one species present here, using past interpretations that have them split up into Japanese, Manchurian etc.) but with shorter leaves and a more consistent tendency to have a single trunk (at least around here). The western North American species of black walnuts are represented down here, there might be at least a few examples up there also. See Jacobson, Trees of Seattle - Second Edition (2006) and Van Pelt, Champion Trees of Washington State (University of Washington, Seattle, 1996). As usual, Jacobson mentions morphological features; large examples were seen on northwest Washington properties and accounted for by Van Pelt - it seemed there was actually a bit of a concentration of them up that way - although walnut trees are a feature of rural habitations throughout the area. As with other species of trees the fine points are illuminated by guidebooks, manuals and whatever web pages there might be treating these particular ones.
I have edited the first posting to move the fruit photo for Juglans2 to Juglans3; I don't have a fruit photo for Juglans2. And I replaced the fruit photos for Juglans nigra. I'm sure I'm not going to be the person who recognizes the western Black Walnut (is that J. nigra x J. Hindsii, called 'Royal'?). As promised, here are photos of Juglans cinerea. I don't seem to have gotten a habit photo of the VanDusen tree in focus. The leaf stems seem hairier than on J. nigra, with shorter hairs than on J. ailantifolia. These J. cinerea trees on Yew from 37th to 40th are listed in Straley's Trees of Vancouver. The fruits are lemon-shaped, smooth, shiny and sticky. The bark is supposed to be grey, though I'm not finding that convincing. Edited: here are some more photos from the trees on Yew: At VanDusen, we also found Juglans cathayensis, Chinese Butternut. I didn't get a habit photo of this one either.
This synopsis may be helpful, if accurate*: Juglans cinerea has white to greyish buds that are oblong and flattened, and narrow at the base. J. ailantifolia has beige to pale brown buds that are broad at the base. The upper edge of the leaf scar of J. cinerea is straight, bordered by well-defined velvety ridge. A monkey face with a fuzzy cap, according to my friend Susan Murray. The upper edge of the leaf scar of J. ailantifolia has a small notch and is not so (at all?) fuzzy. If in doubt, check out the nuts. They are more globose and plentiful in J. ailantifolia and oilier in butternut. The ridges of J. cinerea nuts are reputedly sharp enough to draw blood. Differentiating the cultivated Asian species is a different matter altogether. As far as I can tell, the leaflets taper gradually to a point in J. mandshurica and the hairs are red-brown, while in J. ailantifolia the leaflets are pointed, but more abruptly, and the hairs are yellowish. The husks of the Chinese species are more ellipsoid-ovoid, while those of Japanese walnut are more globose-ovoid. In my experience, the crown habit of J. mandshurica is also broader, with fewer, sturdier, and more horizontal branches. The two species are clearly very closely related. I used a number of books (Dirr, Mitchell, Murray) and on-line pages (Wikipedia, eFloras, and the exceptionally useful Henriette's Herbal) in researching this post. Frustratingly, no one publication ever seems to be adequate. * I suspect the characters (as above) are not so hard and fast in nature (and beware of strongly growing, vegetative shoots). In cultivation, walnuts are notoriously promiscuous, so I would expect that hybrids with intermediate traits would be common, especially around old farmsteads.
Further useful info: Grimshaw, Notes on the temperate species of Juglans. Note the comment that while treated as separate species there, the case for treating J. ailantifolia and J. mandshurica as a single species is good.
Here are two young trees that look quite different to me. The first I'm pretty sure is Juglans nigra. I'm not sure if this came with the building or if it's a balcony planting. This other, that is part of the building landscaping, has both missing and smaller terminal leaflets AND largest terminal leaflets. Buds are whitish and fuzzy, maybe narrower at the base? Bark is grey, but not that different from the bark on the other tree, though smoother. The bud scars are (almost) flat on top and look to be a different shape from the ones on the first tree, but I don't see any "fringe of hairs" (as mentioned in the key in Michael's link) as in J. cinerea, or "velvety ridge" mentioned by Douglas. It doesn't seem fuzzy enough to be J. cinerea. I was surprised to see in the first tree photo that it seemed to have opposite branching in at least seven locations (and thought I'd been confusing some other tree with walnut), but the other photo doesn't show that at all. So the question is, is this something like J. californica or J. hindsii or the 'Royal' hybrid? It has some reddish hairs on the stems; I don't know if it has tufts of hairs on the main veins of the leaves. It does have "leaf scars broadly triangular with rounded corners" (from Michael's link), matching J. hindsii, and leaves the right shape for that. Or am I getting over excited, and it's just a variation on Juglans nigra?
Two things are leading me to think that the second tree in my Sept 24 posting is more related to J. cinerea than J. ailantifolia: the leaflets are pointing straight out, not at a 45 degree angle (according the key in the Grimshaw dendrology.org article that Michael linked to), and the lenticels are more dot-like, not elongated laterally as is shown in the twig comparison in the Arnold Arboretum Arnoldia article on Butternut on page 9 (link was in some other posting on walnuts on this forum). I've added some photos to the supposed J. cinerea trees in posting #5. The twig photo for these trees shows diamond-shaped lenticels that are mentioned in the Arnoldia article as characteristic of buart or buartnut, "the common name for Juglans × bixbyi (hybrids between butternut and the exotic Japanese walnut)". The fruits seem to fit the description for butternet though. I guess we should have opened them up. Buartnuts look pretty distinctive, from photos on the web. Here are another two trees, photos from June and this week. The first had fuzzy young fruits when I first saw it in June, but no fruits on the tree this week. It did have several nuts on the ground, which look like heartnut drawings in the efloras illustration for Juglans mandshurica that Ron linked to. It seems that I'm allowed to call this J. ailantifolia. The leaflets were at a 45 degree angle, except for the ones on leaves that were pointing upwards. I went to see this tree because it's on the city list as being J. nigra, and I wanted a leaf scar photo. I've certainly learned enough to know it's not that. Douglas talked about bud colour, but didn't mention pinkish buds. I guess they're closer to beige, leaflets are at a 45 degree angle, the lenticels are elongated laterally, and the leaf scars are not flat on top, so J. ailantifolia. Here is a leaf scar photo of the young J. nigra at UBCBG.
