How To Identify 4 Common Hickories

In this video we'll be learning how to identify 4 common species of hickory trees. I hope you enjoy!
****************************************************************************
****************************************************************************
Species in this video:
1. Carya cordiformis (bitternut hickory)
2. Carya illinoinensis (pecan)
3. Carya glabra (pignut hickory)
4. Carya ovata (Shagbark hickory)

[carpathic]

Great info that is well presented. TYVM for your work!

[amyep]

excellent information and video!! Thank you!

[chugwater]

Love this winter ID content. Bushwhacking through eastern US forests in summer is a special kind of hell. I completely understand why native Americans did so much controlled burning.

[ericpierce]

Nice video! I have a pecan in my backyard that was planted by whoever built this house in 1963. It's enormous and produces so many pecans we can't use them all so we sell what we can't use. I'm in New Mexico where pecan is a major crop. The bark on mine (and all the others around here) looks a lot more like the example you showed of pignut hickory? I've never seen bark like the pecan you showed. I guess there are other cultivars with different characteristics.

[LC-leew]

Cool video! I did not know that pecans were a type of hickory. We have a pignut next door that my old dog used to eat whole!

[ErelasInglor]

Great video! Two suggestion I would make to help your viewers is to provide sizes of height and width, etc. in terms of feet and inches so the general population viewing your videos can follow along easier. Secondly, I would add a general indication of their native range in the U.S. so it gives viewers a general idea whether they may be found in their area! Otherwise, great and informative ID plotting of the Caryas! :) Last note...curious why the Shellbark hickory (Carya laciniosa) was excluded?

[jeffmcrae]

Love your content, and your enthusiasm for nature.

[anntanner]

Enjoy your commentary. Easy to understand

[Biophile]

The bark you're showing for Pecan looks a bit odd. Young pecan bark looks a lot like young black walnut bark in my experience. I was glad to see you show the different nuts and twigs. I have the worst trouble telling the nuts apart! :) There's so many more hickory species, I am hoping to find a shellbark hickory so I can talk about them, the only ones I currently know of are in Indiana ...

[stephaniemckechnie]

Awesome hickory video!

I live in Southern Ontario and we also have SHELLbark hickory (Carya laciniosa), which seems to be pretty visually similar to SHAGbark.

If you're familiar, do you have any tips for telling the two apart?

[Mixwell]

The nut you have at 2:13 is the size of what I think is my shag bark hickory tree since they drop there and theres no other tree near it and the rotten lime looking nuts wit the husk are from a different variety.

I think I may have a pig nut hickory based off the leaf count and the way the nuts look

[Mixwell]

In 2021 i moved to TN and i know I have a shagbark and whatever else hickory. Started wondering when "brown rotten limes" were dropping all the time. Looked it up and found i had a hickory tree.. used the husks for smoking and today I had to trim a few long hanging branches and considered drying out the branches for smoking wood chips.

I guess I want to make sure it actually is a hickory..

I noticed my shagbark (what i think) hickory drops small nuts like the size of pinball where my other treee drops what looks like rotten limes. Its the husks and the year i moved to TN the nuts were dropping and there were a lot of squirrels hanging out.. IIRC they only produce nuts like every 3 years which explains why i haven't seen hardly any squirrels this year

[victorhopper]

we had some hickories with nuts as big as black walnuts and with the husk on them the size of softballs. what are they called? they were harder to crack than a black walnut but very tasty

[cherylvanepps]

Thank you for this video on IDing hickories. I found a few nuts on our property and my plant ID app says I gave a young pignut tree sprout. The animals brought them here because we have so several varieties of ash trees but no hickory that I can see. When I try to identify the tree, sometimes (especially young trees) they have both opposing and alternating leaves. Leaflets range from 5 to 9 and are similar in shape to the hickories. The bark on their trunks are raised ridged... other characteristics which make identification (ash vs. hickeory) difficult, especially when buds were hit by frost so no nuts are forming. I wish someone would create a video to help discern the differences for positive identification. I'll keep searching around yhe neighborhood...

[moplantdaddy]

How many of these nuts have you eaten?

[robertsnyder]

Are the bitter nut hickory the same tree as the pignut ?