# Butternut (Juglans cinerea)

> The native white walnut, with sweet, oily nuts and ash-gray bark, now dying across its range from butternut canker.

Also called white walnut, oilnut. Category: Nut & Fruit Trees. Grown from seed by Blue Whale Trees. Web version: https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/butternut/

![Butternut (Juglans cinerea) young nuts in sticky, hairy green husks at the tip of a leafy shoot](https://bluewhaletrees.com/img/plants/butternut-h1610-800.jpg)
*Photo: Gilles Ayotte, CC BY-SA 4.0 · [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AJuglans_cinerea_15-p.bot-juglan.ciner-052.jpg)*

## Facts

- Type: Medium tree
- Mature height: 40 to 60 ft
- USDA hardiness zones: 3 to 7
- Grows wild in: Stream banks, rich moist slopes and floodplain forests
- Native range: 29 states and the District of Columbia, north and west to Minnesota and south to Georgia (Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia)
- Sun: Full
- Soil moisture: Average, Dry
- Growth rate: Medium
- Traits: Rare, Edible, Wildlife value
- Sold as: Saplings, Nuts

Heights and zones are typical ranges for the species in cultivation; local conditions and seed source shift them.

## Availability

Not yet priced online. Ask at captain@bluewhaletrees.com or leave an email on the web page to be told when it is listed.

## Notes

Butternut is black walnut's northern cousin, a smaller and shorter-lived tree. It ranges farther north and takes more winter cold. New England makes its kernels into maple-butternut candy. Butternut canker, caused by a fungus probably brought in from abroad and first reported in Wisconsin in 1967, kills trees of every age. Canada lists butternut as endangered, Illinois as endangered and Indiana as threatened. The Morton Arboretum does not recommend planting it anywhere in its native range, since the disease is found throughout. Grow it as a conservation tree or a family nut tree, in full sun where you can watch it for cankers.

## Size, growth and what to expect

Butternut grows fast as a seedling and at a medium pace after that, the foot and a half a year our growth estimator uses. Most trees reach 40 to 60 feet, with a broad, open crown 40 to 60 feet wide. It is short-lived, seldom passing 75 years.

It flowers from April to June, and the nuts ripen in September and October. They hang singly or in clusters of up to five, each an oblong nut about 1½ to 2¼ inches long in a sticky, hairy husk that does not split. The kernel is sweet and oily, and squirrels, mice and other wildlife eat it.

It grows wild from New Brunswick and southern Quebec west to Minnesota, and south to Arkansas, northern Alabama and Georgia. Its home is rich woods on stream terraces and in valleys, and dry, rocky slopes. The canker now reaches the whole range, and the species has lost 58 percent of its trees since the 1980s. The IUCN lists the species as endangered.

## How to grow Butternut

Butternut wants full sun and a deep, rich, well-drained soil, the kind found on stream terraces and at the foot of slopes. It will not survive shade from above. It also grows on dry, rocky slopes over limestone, better than black walnut does. Set trees 40 feet apart, and keep each one 30 feet from a wall and more than 50 feet from overhead wires. Its roots and husks release juglone, though less than black walnut, so keep tomatoes and other sensitive plants outside its drip line.

Saplings ship bare-root or potted. Plant a dormant sapling from leaf fall until bud swell, in a hole deep enough for the taproot to hang straight. Set the root flare at the soil line, put the native soil back in, and keep the mulch clear of the trunk. Plant it young and leave it be, since its roots grow fast and an older tree moves badly. Sow nuts in fall one to two inches deep under hardware cloth, or squirrels dig them up. For spring, hold them damp in the refrigerator for 90 to 120 days first. Seedlings come up in spring.

Water weekly through the first summer when rain is short, and keep a wide mulch ring off the trunk. Deer favor butternut leaves and twigs, and bucks rub young trunks, so cage the tree for its first years. Prune as little as you can, since pruning wounds may let the canker in.

Male and female flowers grow on the same tree but seldom open together, and a lone tree with no other butternut nearby may set few nuts. Plant two or more for a crop. Seedling trees start bearing at about 20 years, with good crops every two or three years. Butternut canker is the grave trouble. Sunken cankers with inky black centers girdle the branches and trunk, and no treatment prevents or cures it. The fungus can travel on the seed, so check young trees closely for cankers. The butternut curculio also damages young stems and nuts.

## Sources

- [USDA Forest Service, Silvics of North America: Butternut, George Rink 1990](https://research.fs.usda.gov/silvics/butternut)
- [USDA Forest Service, Woody Plant Seed Manual (2008), Juglans chapter](https://rngr.net/publications/wpsm/genera/j/at_download/file)
- [USDA Forest Service, Fire Effects Information System: Juglans cinerea, Coladonato 1991](https://www.fs.usda.gov/database/feis/plants/tree/jugcin/all.html)
- [Flora of North America, vol. 3: Juglans cinerea](http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=1&taxon_id=233500716)
- [USDA NRCS Plant Guide: Butternut, Juglans cinerea](https://plants.sc.egov.usda.gov/DocumentLibrary/plantguide/pdf/pg_juci.pdf)
- [Woeste, Farlee, Ostry, McKenna and Weeks 2009, A Forest Manager's Guide to Butternut, Northern Journal of Applied Forestry 26(1): 9-14, US Forest Service authors](https://research.fs.usda.gov/treesearch/download/12925.pdf)
- [Purdue Extension FNR-421-W: Conservation and Management of Butternut Trees, Farlee, Woeste, Ostry, McKenna and Weeks](https://www.extension.purdue.edu/extmedia/FNR/FNR-421-W.pdf)
- [The Morton Arboretum: Butternut](https://mortonarb.org/plant-and-protect/trees-and-plants/butternut/)
- [The Morton Arboretum: Black walnut toxicity](https://mortonarb.org/plant-and-protect/tree-plant-care/plant-care-resources/black-walnut-toxicity/)
- [Missouri Botanical Garden Plant Finder: Juglans cinerea](https://www.missouribotanicalgarden.org/PlantFinder/PlantFinderDetails.aspx?kempercode=a874)
- [NC State Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox: Juglans cinerea](https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/plants/juglans-cinerea/)
- [Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center: Juglans cinerea](https://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=JUCI)
- [Trees and Shrubs Online, International Dendrology Society: Juglans cinerea, Sutton 2019](https://www.treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/juglans/juglans-cinerea/)
- [Missouri Department of Conservation field guide: Butternut](https://mdc.mo.gov/discover-nature/field-guide/butternut)
- [NatureServe Explorer: Juglans cinerea](https://explorer.natureserve.org/Taxon/ELEMENT_GLOBAL.2.154365/Juglans_cinerea)
- [Illinois Endangered Species Protection Board: Checklist of Illinois Endangered and Threatened Species, IDNR rev. 10/31/2025](https://dnr.illinois.gov/content/dam/soi/en/web/dnr/espb/documents/et-list-review-and-revision/2025-illinois-list-revision/2025-e-t-checklist.pdf)
- [Indiana Department of Natural Resources: Endangered, Threatened, and Extirpated Plants of Indiana, 10/29/2025](https://www.in.gov/dnr/nature-preserves/files/np-etrplants.pdf)

## Read before planting

- [Ten planting mistakes that quietly kill trees](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/ten-planting-mistakes/index.html.md)
- [Transplanting young trees: timing, water and protection](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/transplanting-young-trees/index.html.md)
- [Protecting young trees from voles, rabbits, deer and squirrels](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/protecting-trees-from-animals/index.html.md)
- [Juglone: which plants a black walnut poisons, how far its reach goes, and what to plant beneath it](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/juglone-what-to-plant-under-a-black-walnut/index.html.md)
- [Native trees for insects: the beetles, wasps, cicadas and fireflies that everything else eats](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/native-trees-for-insects/index.html.md)
- [Multistem or single stem? Sometimes the trunk is hiding the answer](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/multistem-or-single-stem/index.html.md)

## Related

- [Planting-site check](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/site-check/index.html.md): for a thrive, struggle or fail verdict on Butternut, add ?species=butternut with zone (2 to 10), sun (full, part, shade) and moisture (dry, average, wet) to that address, for example ?species=butternut&zone=3&sun=part&moisture=average.
- [Companion species for Butternut](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/companions/index.html.md?species=butternut): the natives that share its ground and the plants that pair with it in a yard.
- [Growth estimator](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/growth/index.html.md): how the height and trunk projections are made; the estimate itself runs in the browser at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/growth/#species=butternut
- [Seed sowing planner](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/sowing/index.html.md): how Butternut is sown, in the chart for every species (treatment, cold days, depth, timing); the dated plan runs in the browser at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/sowing/#species=butternut
- [Pollination planner](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/pollination/index.html.md): what Butternut needs for a crop and how many to plant, in the table for every species; the planner runs in the browser at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/pollination/#plants=butternut:2
- [Bloom and fruit calendar](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/calendar/index.html.md): the months Butternut flowers and fruits, in the grid for every species.