The Forestry Forum

I need help identifing some nuts. No not me! The nuts look exactly like English Walnuts only they are about half the size. The tree looked like an English Walnut also. The nuts were mostly on the ground howecerr some are still in the tree. We have English Walnuts at our home and all of them dropped weeks ago while theses as I said are still hanging. Maybe it is an English only the nuts are stunted? The tree looks to be planted on good soil though and gets lots of water.

Could it be Juglans hindsii, which is used as a root graft for English Walnut. But, it is native to California. If the nuts are still clinging, it may be that they are growing in an evironment that does not have a long enough growing season. Do you get die-back in the crown of the tree from one season to the next? There are 5 native Juglans species of the US.

http://www.cnr.vt.edu/dendro/dendrology/Syllabus2/factsheet.cfm?ID=520

The link posted above listed the nut as being 1 1/2 -2" in dia which is correct for the English Walnuts at our home. The nuts from the tree in question are about 1" in dia. Most of the nuts are on the ground however some are still clinging to the tree. The tree is located in Traverse City Mi in a city park so it is certainly possible it is a southern tree of some type. Our home is 50 miles to the North with more severe winters and we don't get any die back of the upper limbs/branches I don't know about the tree in question but it did look healthy though.