Photo: William (Ned) Friedman, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Nutmeg Hickory

Carya myristiciformis

Also called swamp hickory, bitter water hickory.

The rarest hickory, with leaves backed in silvery scales and sweet, thick-shelled nuts that look like nutmegs, from scattered stands across the South.

RareEdibleWildlife valueFall color

Type: Large tree
Mature height: 80–100 ft
USDA zones: 7–9
Growth rate: Slow
Sun: Full
Soil moisture: Average, Wet
Grows wild in: Floodplain forests and stream banks
Native range: 9 states, north to North Carolina, south to Louisiana and west to Texas
List all 9
Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas
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Nutmeg hickory is the rarest species in its genus. Silver scales coat the underside of each leaf and age to bronze. The reddish-brown nut, mottled with tan, gave the tree both its common name and its botanical one. Its scattered stands may be relics of an older flora. Give it room on a big lawn or a creek terrace, where it can grow for generations and feed the squirrels that bury its nuts.

Size, growth and what to expect

Nutmeg hickory grows slowly, about a foot a year in our growth estimator. It may reach only 30 feet in its first 20 years, and close to 100 feet at maturity. Forest trees reach 80 to 100 feet, with a trunk 2 feet through and a narrow crown. Seed bearing starts at about 30 years, with good crops every 2 to 3 years.

It flowers in April and May, and the nuts ripen in September and October. The fruit is about an inch long, with a husk that splits to the base and a thick shell around a sweet kernel. Squirrels cut the nuts while they are still green.

It grows in small, scattered stands from the Carolina coastal plain west to Arkansas and eastern Texas, and in northeastern Mexico. It is abundant only near Selma, Alabama, and in southern Arkansas. Its home is rich, moist but well-drained bottomland, stream banks and bluffs, often on limy soils.

How to grow Nutmeg Hickory

Nutmeg hickory wants full sun and a deep, moist soil that still drains, from sand to clay. It takes limy ground, and it will not grow in shade. Set trees 40 feet apart, and keep each one 30 feet from a wall and more than 50 feet from overhead wires.

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 where it will stay, since the taproot can reach 4 feet or more. Sow nuts in fall an inch deep under hardware cloth, or squirrels dig them up. For spring, soak them two to four days, then chill them damp in the refrigerator for 60 to 120 days. Seedlings come up from late April to early June.

Water every week or two through the first summer when rain is short. Rabbits gnaw young hickory bark and deer browse the tips, so guard the tree with a tube or cage for three years. Prune only to keep a single leader, in the dormant season.

Nutmeg hickory carries male and female flowers on the same tree. Like other hickories, it sheds its pollen on the wind, often before or after its own female flowers are ready, so a second hickory nearby improves the crop. Seedling trees bear at about 30 years. Twig girdlers can prune young trees, the hickory bark beetle strikes in dry years, and sapsuckers riddle the bark. No serious disease troubles it.

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

Sources (7)

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