page_title: Hickory
section_title: Uses
hierarchical_section_title: Hickory / Uses
caption_attribution_description: English: Finished hickory wood in a cabinet
context_page_description: Hickory is a type of tree, comprising the genus Carya, which includes around 18 species. Five or six species are native to China, Indochina, and India, as many as twelve are native to the United States, four are found in Mexico, and two to four are from Canada. A number of hickory species are used for products like edible nuts or wood.
  Hickories are temperate rain forest trees with pinnately compound leaves and large nuts. Hickory flowers are small, yellow-green catkins produced in spring. They are wind-pollinated and self-incompatible. The fruit is a globose or oval nut, 2–5 cm long and 1.5–3 cm diameter, enclosed in a four-valved husk, which splits open at maturity. The nut shell is thick and bony in most species, and thin in a few, notably the pecan; it is divided into two halves, which split apart when the seed germinates.
context_section_description: Hickory wood is very hard, stiff, dense and shock resistant. There are woods that are stronger than hickory and woods that are harder, but the combination of strength, toughness, hardness, and stiffness found in hickory wood is not found in any other commercial wood.  It is used for tool handles, bows, wheel spokes, carts, drumsticks, lacrosse stick handles, golf club shafts (sometimes still called hickory stick, even though made of steel or graphite), the bottom of skis, walking sticks, and for punitive use as a switch (like hazel), and especially as a cane-like hickory stick in schools and use by parents.  Paddles are often made from hickory. This property of hickory wood has left a trace in some Native American languages: in Ojibwe, hickory is called mitigwaabaak, a compound of mitigwaab "bow" and the final -aakw "hardwood tree". Due to its grain structure, hickory is more susceptible to moisture absorption than other species of wood, and is therefore more prone to shrinkage, warping or swelling with changes in humidity.
  Baseball bats were formerly made of hickory, but are now more commonly made of ash. Hickory is replacing ash as the wood of choice for Scottish shinty sticks (also known as camans). Hickory was extensively used for the construction of early aircraft.
  Hickory is also highly prized for wood-burning stoves and chimineas because of its high energy content. Hickory wood is also a preferred type for smoking cured meats. In the Southern United States, hickory is popular for cooking barbecue, as hickory grows abundantly in the region and adds flavor to the meat.
  Hickory is sometimes used for wood flooring due to its durability in resisting wear and character.  Hickory wood is not noted for rot resistance.
  A bark extract from shagbark hickory is also used in an edible syrup similar to maple syrup, with a slightly bitter, smoky taste. The Cherokee Indians would produce a green dye from hickory bark, which they used to dye cloth. When this bark was mixed with maple bark, it produced a yellow dye pigment.
  The nuts of some species are palatable, while others are bitter and only suitable for animal feed. Shagbark and shellbark hickory, along with pecan, are regarded by some as the finest nut trees. Pecans are the most important nut tree native to North America.
  When cultivated for their nuts, clonal (grafted) trees of the same cultivar cannot pollinate each other because of their self-incompatibility. Two or more cultivars must be planted together for successful pollination. Seedlings (grown from hickory nuts) will usually have sufficient genetic variation.
  It is an excellent wood for fuel due to its density.
caption: Finished hickory in a cabinet
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