What Is The Name Of This Strange Tree?

[Wifeshusband]

I'm pretty fair on identifying trees, but this one has me stumped. It is not Osage Orange, as I grew up with that tree. The fruit is the size of a baseball, green, then turning black and stinky. Nothing wants to eat it the fruit.. What is this tree? Another invasive like the China Berry tree?

 

[NCHillbilly]

Black walnut. It's native, and the walnuts inside that outer husk are excellent, much better flavor than the English walnuts you buy. You must not have squirrels there much, because those are their absolute favorite. That green husk will dry soon, revealing the walnut inside. You can stomp the husks off or run over them with a car to get them off, too. The husks made a good dye and wood stain.

 

[Artfuldodger]

Black walnut. It's native, and the walnuts inside that outer husk are excellent, much better flavor than the English walnuts you buy. You must not have squirrels there much, because those are their absolute favorite. That green husk will dry soon, revealing the walnut inside. You can stomp the husks off or run over them with a car to get them off, too. The husks made a good dye and wood stain.

I love black walnut bread!

 

[NCHillbilly]

I love black walnut bread!

And brownies, and cake, and about anything else you make with them.

 

[Nicodemus]

I can eat em till I about founder. I love those things.

 

[blood on the ground]

Put on rubber gloves if you go digging into them or you might have some stained fingers

 

[Wifeshusband]

Maybe I didn't look close enough but I didn't see any nuts. Guess the critters got them. I don't guess I have ever seen a Black Walnut tree then. They must be rare. Isn't that the tree they cut down for furniture, gun stocks, valuable stuff? I have heard stories when I was young about an individual tree selling for thousands of dollars. Are they that rare and valuable?
Certainly not any on my hunting property. Plenty of Hickory nuts though.

 

[northgeorgiasportsman]

Maybe I didn't look close enough but I didn't see any nuts. Guess the critters got them. I don't guess I have ever seen a Black Walnut tree then. They must be rare. Isn't that the tree they cut down for furniture, gun stocks, valuable stuff? I have heard stories when I was young about an individual tree selling for thousands of dollars. Are they that rare and valuable?
Certainly not any on my hunting property. Plenty of Hickory nuts though.

The nut is inside that green husk. If nothing is toting them off, they will lay there and turn black. Once they've dried a bit, you can crack them open and remove the nut. My pap used to sit on his porch and crack them on a big anvil stone with a hammer and give away quart bags full of them.

 

[Wifeshusband]

Lord, who can afford walnuts in the grocery store anymore, pecans for that matter. I can't. I go to the pecan trees and pick them off the ground. Got to crack 'em just right to get the perfect halves. We had one of these when I was young but I got to where I can crack them with my hands and get out the intact halves better than this do-dad.

 

[The Original Rooster]

Try those walnuts, you'll like'em. You'll need some help to open them up though because they are tough, tough.

 

[Hillbilly stalker]

Lots of good uses for walnuts and their hulls. I keep 4 or 5 in a jar under the sink soaking in water. It makes great ear medicine for dogs. The tannic acid leaches out in the water and will kill ear mites. Good for dying traps or when your Camo gets shiney you can soak it in a bucket. I’ve got a DYI cracker sure beats mashing fingers with a hammer.

 

[Nicodemus]

I know a couple of younguns about 55 years ago that gathered up a croker sack full of em still in the husk. They whopped em good with the flat of an ax till the juice saturated the sack then drug it through a hole in a slow running creek. They got a couple of messes of fish for their trouble.

 

[Wifeshusband]

Well, I'll say one thing. You guys know your nuts. Enjoyed your wood lore. Always interesting learning something new every day no matter how old you are.
The only Black Walnut I had seen before seeing this tree was on my gun stocks.

 

[jaybirdius]

Black walnut wood is very valuable once a lot of time and money has been put into it to render a finished product. People try to sell me yard trees for my sawmill, I tell them if they'll haul it to me I'll pay for their gas. Yard trees are normally full of metal and not worth the effort to saw.

 

[Wifeshusband]

Apparently it's so rare they're not using it much for gun stocks anymore. From what I gather, most of the walnut for today's gun stocks comes from Turkey and Kurdistan, I believe. Still, very beautiful wood.

 

[NCHillbilly]

Maybe I didn't look close enough but I didn't see any nuts. Guess the critters got them. I don't guess I have ever seen a Black Walnut tree then. They must be rare. Isn't that the tree they cut down for furniture, gun stocks, valuable stuff? I have heard stories when I was young about an individual tree selling for thousands of dollars. Are they that rare and valuable?
Certainly not any on my hunting property. Plenty of Hickory nuts though.

They are extremely common around here. Umpteen thousands of them. I cut about fifty or sixty saplings a year out of my yard where the squirrels bury the nuts and they sprout. I can probably see 25 walnut trees from my porch. There are quite a few down on the SC/GA line where I hunt and have a place, too. My wife works for a lumber export business and they sell a good bit of black walnut lumber. It's high-dollar stuff, but not ungodly expensive.

And like Wes an others said, the green part is a fleshy husk around the nut, like the green outside hull around a hickory nut. We used to dump buckets full of them in the driveway so the cars would run back and forth over them and mash the hulls off so you could get the nuts out. My uncle used to have two sheets of plywood about 2'-3' square with a bunch of finishing nails driven through them. He'd put the walnuts between them and get on top and do the twist and yank the hulls off.

 

[GeorgiaGlockMan]

Lot's of walnut trees in Missouri where I fell in love with hunting and fishing as a youngun.

 

[Duff]

I have about 20 walnut trees on the edge of my yard. This time of year I have to rake those jokers up to save my mower blades.

 

[The Original Rooster]

They are extremely common around here. Umpteen thousands of them. I cut about fifty or sixty saplings a year out of my yard where the squirrels bury the nuts and they sprout. I can probably see 25 walnut trees from my porch. There are quite a few down on the SC/GA line where I hunt and have a place, too. My wife works for a lumber export business and they sell a good bit of black walnut lumber. It's high-dollar stuff, but not ungodly expensive.

And like Wes an others said, the green part is a fleshy husk around the nut, like the green outside hull around a hickory nut. We used to dump buckets full of them in the driveway so the cars would run back and forth over them and mash the hulls off so you could get the nuts out. My uncle used to have two sheets of plywood about 2'-3' square with a bunch of finishing nails driven through them. He'd put the walnuts between them and get on top and do the twist and yank the hulls off.

Wish I had a few around here. Still, I'm blessed with tons of hickories, hog nuts, and several types of oaks and the birds love the American Hollies.

 

[fishfryer]

Lots of good uses for walnuts and their hulls. I keep 4 or 5 in a jar under the sink soaking in water. It makes great ear medicine for dogs. The tannic acid leaches out in the water and will kill ear mites. Good for dying traps or when your Camo gets shiney you can soak it in a bucket. I’ve got a DYI cracker View attachment 1111298sure beats mashing fingers with a hammer.

Now that looks like a sho nuff nut cracker!