Carya cathayensis Seeds | Chinese Hickory
LATIN NAME: Carya cathayensis
COMMON NAME: Chinese Hickory
Plant Profile
Carya cathayensis is the Chinese hickory, a deciduous tree of the walnut family, growing fifteen to twenty metres with a straight trunk, pinnate leaves of five to seven leaflets and a deeply fluted bark that becomes shaggy with age. It is native to the mountains of Zhejiang, Anhui and Jiangxi, where it is grown for its nuts.
The nut is small, thin-shelled and rich, with a flavour between a pecan and a walnut. Chinese hickory nuts are hand-cracked and sold at a high price, and the kernel is used in pastries and eaten as a snack, particularly around Hangzhou. The catkins are long and green in spring, and the husk that covers the nut splits into four valves in autumn.
Science & Biotechnology
The species is slow to bear: seedlings may take ten to fifteen years, and even grafted trees take five. That, and the difficulty of cracking the small nut without breaking the kernel, is why the crop has stayed a regional speciality rather than a plantation commodity.
Hickories have a deep taproot and a strong mycorrhizal association, and they transplant badly after two years, which is why nursery stock is grown in deep containers. The nut is high in oil, around seventy per cent, and goes rancid quickly once shelled, so it is stored in the shell or frozen. The shell is thick enough to protect the kernel through winter, and nuts are usually dried in the shade for a month before they are stored.
Uses & Benefits
Nuts are eaten fresh, roasted or candied, and the oil is pressed in small quantities. The wood is hard, shock-resistant and used for tool handles, for furniture and for sporting goods. The tree is also planted as a shade and specimen tree, though its size and slow growth limit its use in small gardens.
In Chinese food culture the nut is a festival snack, sold roasted and salted in paper bags, and the kernels are used in mooncake fillings. The shell is used as fuel and, in some regions, as a mulch that suppresses weeds.
Growing from Seed
Seed needs three to four months of cold stratification and should be sown in deep containers, since the radicle grows down fast. Fresh seed sown in autumn is simplest, and germination is often in the second spring.
Seedlings are planted out at two years, before the taproot has become too long, and they need deep, moist, well-drained soil. The tree is slow for the first five years and then accelerates. Grafted trees are used for named varieties, and the rootstock is usually a seedling of the same species. Nut quality is better on trees with a second variety nearby, since the species is only partly self-fertile.
Our Take
A slow, handsome nut tree for a patient grower, and one whose crop is worth more by the kilogram than almost any other temperate nut.
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