Click on the images help you identify a bitternut hickory.
Form
Height is 40 to 75 feet with a trunk diameter of 10 to 25 inches. Tall and slender with straight, green trunk and broad, rounded crown.
Bark
Granite-gray, faintly tinged with yellow. Breaks into thin, platelike scales.
Leaf
Alternate on stem, length 6 to 10 inches, pinnately compound with seven to 11 leaflets that are bright green with finely toothed margins. Leaves are the smallest of all hickory leaves. Color turns golden yellow in autumn. The tree's bright yellow winter buds are a good identification tool.
Fruit (seed)
A nut that is almost round with a sharply pointed tip and enclosed in a thin, scaly husk that splits about halfway down in four lines of division. Its very bitter kernel gives the tree its common name, bitternut.
Range
Found in rich, moist woods, common southward and extending through the Big Woods north to Mille Lacs and infrequently to the upper Mississippi and the tributaries of the St. Louis River. Shade intolerant, moderately slow growing.
Wood uses
Hard, strong, heavy, and reddish-brown. Used for hoops, fuel, farm implements, firewood, and smoking meats. Considered somewhat inferior to the other hickories.