How do you identify a butternut tree?
You can tell a butternut from its close relative, the black walnut, by looking at the nuts, bark and twigs. Butternuts are small to medium-sized trees. Mature trees are seldom more than 21 metres in height and 90 centimetres in diameter. Compared to other tree species, butternuts are short-lived.
Are butternut trees worth anything?
Butternut (Juglans cinera) is a tree that is more valuable for its sweet oily tasting nuts than for its lumber. Butternut wood is very stable with little tendency to warp or crack in use. Two important past uses of the wood have been for church altars and for wood carvers, especially for duck decoys.
How long does it take for a butternut tree to grow?
It is a medium-size tree which will eventually grow to about 60 feet in height. But unlike its cousin the black walnut, the butternut has a relatively short lifespan of around 90 years. Butternut trees reach maturity and begin producing fruit about 20 years after sprouting.
Are butternut trees rare?
Groves of butternut trees were once a common feature along streams and in woodlots of the eastern United States. Healthy butternut trees are now rare because of a lethal new fungal disease called butternut canker.
What is another name for butternut tree?
white walnut trees
Butternut Tree Information Butternut trees are also called white walnut trees because they have pale gray bark and are related to the black walnut tree (Juglans nigra) and other members of the walnut family.
What does a butternut look like on a tree?
Mature butternut bark is platy and ash-gray with dark gray fis- sures between the platy ridges. The bark of young trees is smooth and gray or greenish-gray (Fig. The fruit of a butternut is generally more elongated than the round-shaped fruit of a black walnut and is covered with sticky hairs (Fig. 7, 8).
Is butternut a hardwood or softwood?
Butternut Lumber is one domestic hardwood that we offer here at Advantage Trim & Lumber Co. Butternut Lumber has a Janka hardness of 490, which deems it a soft wood. This makes it a great wood for carving because it shows its beautiful color and grain pattern.
What does butternut wood smell like?
Odor: Butternut has virtually no scent or odor when being worked.
Where can you find butternut trees?
Native Range Westward it is found to central Iowa and central Minnesota. It grows in Wisconsin, Michigan, and northeast into Ontario and Quebec. Through most of its range butternut is not a common tree, and its frequency is declining (4).
How tall do butternut trees grow?
40–60′
Mature Size The butternut grows to a height of 40–60′ and a spread of 35–50′ at maturity.
Why are butternut trees dying?
What threatens it. Butternut Canker is a fungal disease that spreads quickly and can kill a tree within a few years. This fungus has already had a devastating impact on North American Butternut populations. Surveys in eastern Ontario show that most trees are infected, and perhaps one-third have already been killed.
Are butternut trees endangered?
The butternut is now threatened everywhere by a can- ker disease, and in many places it is rare. The butternut is short-lived compared to many associated tree spe- cies, with a normal life span of less than 100 years.
What kind of nuts are on a butternut tree?
The Butternut Tree, also known as White Walnut The butternut or white walnut is closely related to the black walnut tree but differs in its sticky, elongated fruits, sharply ridged nuts and mature pale gray bark. The butternut tree has distinctive ridged and furrowed bark. It produces drooping clusters of sweet nuts which are used in baking.
What kind of forest do butternut trees live in?
Butternut is found with many other tree species in several hardwood types in the mixed mesophytic forest. It is an associated species in the following four northern and central forest cover types: sugar maple–basswood, yellow poplar–white oak–northern red oak, beech–sugar maple, and river birch–sycamore.
Where can I find butternut trees in Alabama?
Steve Nix is a member of the Society of American Foresters and a former forest resources analyst for the state of Alabama. Butternut (Juglans cinerea), also called white walnut or oilnut, grows rapidly on well-drained soils of hillsides and streambanks in mixed hardwood forests.
How is a butternut tree different from a black walnut tree?
The butternut or white walnut is closely related to the black walnut tree but differs in its sticky, elongated fruits, sharply ridged nuts and mature pale gray bark. The butternut tree has distinctive ridged and furrowed bark.