I got an interesting message from a friend the other day, asking me what tree was dumping all the golf ball-sized fruit on Moccasin Creek Road.  I knew immediately that it was Black Walnut, just as he suspected.  So, here is a picture of the tree, and if you enlarge the picture, you can see several fruits way up there.  (My picture of the fruit on the ground wasn't so great.)  When the fruits drop on the ground they kinda make a mess, especially when they fall on the road.

 

I looked up Black Walnut, and found out some interesting info.

 

Its botanical name is Juglans nigra, and is in the same family as English Walnut, Hickory, and Pecan.  The fruits are special too, just like English Walnut, they are very tasty.  Unlike English Walnut, they are a pain to extract from the husks and the shells.  The husks that protect the nuts are full of a yellowish-brown stain, that early American settlers actually used to dye hair!!!  Anyway, that stain can also be used to dye fabric, yarn, wood, and your hands if you're not careful.    

 

We had a friend in Harrisonburg, VA who gathered the fruits as they fell from his trees, and pushed them into his driveway.  Then he ran over them with his truck to get off the husks, without touching them with his hands.  We brought some unshelled nuts home one time, and tried to crack them on the potting bench using a hammer.  Well, you know how THAT turned out.  In order to crack the shells we had to really smack them hard, and when they broke, the shells smashed into the nutmeat.  Yuck!  I wouldn't want to do it for a living, but it was kinda fun to do, once.

 

Interestingly, Missouri is a major producer of Black Walnuts, using machinery to extract the nuts. So, somebody has figured out how to get to the tasty nuts, without infusing them with bits of shell.

 

Next time you eat Black Walnut cake or cookies or ice cream, you will appreciate them in a new way.  

 

 

THANKS, MARK FOR ASKING ABOUT THEM.  We all got to learn something new.