Butternut

[Kedwards]

Anyone have a good leaf profile and bark profile? I am on the hunt for butternut.

[slowzuki]

I was told last night we have 3 butternuts on our property.  Looks like ash to me but who knows.
Ken

Anyone have a good leaf profile and bark profile? I am on the hunt for butternut.

[beenthere]

Ash has opposite branching, and I don't believe butternut does. The leaves are compound on both species, so in a way, it could look like ash (just a bit though   )

[slowzuki]

The big reason I believe they are butter nuts is the nuts I find stashed everywhere by the squirels.  I thought they were robbing peach pits out of the compost pile until I looked at one closely.

I don't know the right terms but the leaves and "whips" that the leaves attach to are distinctive as well.  The scab from the whip is big.
Ken

Ash has opposite branching, and I don't believe butternut does. The leaves are compound on both species, so in a way, it could look like ash (just a bit though   )

[slowzuki]

http://www.fw.vt.edu/dendro/dendrology/syllabus/jcinerea.htm

Here is what you asked for with colour!

[SwampDonkey]

Butternut, or juglans cinerea has pubescent oily hairs on the leaf axis (part of the leaf that the leaflets or petioles attach to) and the leaves are compound. It's leaf scar on over wintering twigs has 3 vascular bundles. The fruit is walnut-like with an oily and green husk covering a grooved and crevassed seed coat. The nut is very hard to crack, but the meat is not as bitter as walnut. The bark of the tree is greenish grey in color with shallow furrows. In young trees there may be light colors stripes in the dark greenish bark. The terminal bud of butternut overwintering twigs is very large compared to ash buds with green-gray pubescent scales. Under the 'Tree Sex' thread you can see a picture of the pollen flowers emerging. I will soon post the female flowers which emerge later and have some red in their color, but are mainly yellow-green. The tree is non-symetrical (alternate), white ash is symetrical and has opposite branching, for comparison. Tree form of adult trees is umbrella-like, similar to elms. Heavy lateral branches are very susceptable to wind and ice damage. They do best in moist, rich, sheltered areas. Pith of the branches are chambered (meaning its not a solid pith, but with open pockets). This is another tree that is at its northern limit in my area.

cheers

[edit]

Link to butternut flowers, male and female

[Kedwards]

cool.. i think we have some on our farm..they look like ash

[sprucebunny]

I read recently that butternut is becoming rare. It has a grain similar to a light color walnut and is a very light weight wood.

[SwampDonkey]

Supposedly there is a fungus infecting it in some states. I've not noticed disease in it here. What gets them mostly in my area is old age, logging and ice and wind storms breaking off major branches. The wood is quite decay resistant.

It is quite light when dried as you say and hard to finish, leaves burs. You have to sand in more than one direction. It is also called 'white walnut'.

[Kedwards]

I was talking to some large kiln operators in the area and they mix in butternut and walnut in the green and steam it together to get bleed through from the walnut. Apparently it picks up stain VERY well and with the walnut it makes it LOOK just like walnut. Some of those unscrupulous suckers sell it as walnut. I cut a B-nut cant just the other day for a customer..it DOES look like walnut.

[SwampDonkey]

Well, they are both Juglans ;)

I use a piece of waste butternut under a sliding door on the barn to keep the ground hogs from digging their way in. It's been there 3 years and still sound, just weathered grey is all.

[slowzuki]

The fungus killing the Butternut's has made it to the maritimes swampy, they don't really know how it made the jump.  There is a university catologing trees and freezing samples of healthy trees as none seem to be resistant as some elms are to dutch elm disease.

I'll have to redo my searches for info.

[SwampDonkey]

slowzuki:

Yes, I heard it has reached us I guess. But, I haven't seen any evidence. I sent people in Fredericton a whole host of butternut sites. In the end it seemed it was a waist of my time 'cause 1) the sites were not infected, 2) there was no follow-up from anyone, 3) butternut is so isolated and scattered up here that I can't see it being a major threat. A strong possibility is that the fungus hitched a ride on some agricultural product.

my $0.20 worth :D ;)

[etat]

Strangest thing, and off topic.  I'm not that much of a candy eater but today I got to hankering for a candybar I used to eat sometimes.  A 'ButterNut' candy bar.  Kids was going to the store and the urge just hit me.  Hadn't had one, or looked for one in years. So....I asked Kim and the kids out of the blue if thay still sold them.  She said she hadn't seen one in years, and the Kids had never heard of em!!!! ??? ??? ???

[SwampDonkey]

If that candy bar had butternut 'meats' in it, then it be a candy bar worth buying. I like them better than cooking 'Carpathian' walnuts.

[Kedwards]

Is the butternut meat that tasty? In the fall I usually go and sit on a quiet hillside onthe farm and crack and eat hickory nuts until i cant move..the squirrels eye me kind of angrily  :D

[SwampDonkey]

Butternut meat is real good, we used to use it in fudge exclusively. But, you really have to work for it. We would collect the nuts after a hard frost in the fall and spread the nuts out to dry properlly, don't pile the nuts untill they dry good. I had a box in the storage shed and a squirrel sacked some nuts from the tree outside, and filled the box. poor widdle squirrel...hehehehe ;)

[etat]

Them butternut candy bars I was talkin about seems they had little pieces of nuts, caramel, surrounded by chocolate. Wish I had one now!!!!

[SwampDonkey]

Can't even buy good KRAFT carmels here until Holloween. Them hard mollasses kisses are good for removin fillin from a molar hehhee. We used to be able to get good Bosch carmels with peanut butter inside, can't find'm now. They used to be in balk in the grocery store. Now all they carry balk is them sour sugar candy or jube jubes. Anybody can make that crap. ;)

[SwampDonkey]

Here's a recent article on the status of butternut in Canada.

http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2004/06/02/sci-tech/butternut040602

Its been 6 years since I submitted a bunch of maps and photos of stands of butternut and never heard 'jack'. My trees all seem healthy, even germinated quite a few at home and in the wild.


:D :D :D I have a medium sized butternut tree on the back lawn and 2 younger black walnuts beside it. I'de get a kick out of one of them researcher types coming up and telling me them walnut trees are butternut. Shame on me. :D :D :D

cheers