Black Walnut, Juglans nigra

Black Walnut, Juglans nigra

Up to 23 Leaflets!

When you gotta go...



The Adventure

While traveling to do a show in Rickman, TN, there was nothing
around but dilapidated houses, a closed church and a cemetery.
One of my favorite things to do is explore old cemeteries, but I
had to pee so bad that it was becoming miserable...so off to the
woods behind the graveyard I went. And there, to my delight,
was a clearing - with ground covered in green, golf ball-sized
balls. Hooray! After taking care of business, I got to explore this
common tree of the South East.













It's easy to find this tree when it's dropping its tennis ball colored
nuts all over the ground - and you can look for the the dried out,
shriveled balls a little later in the fall. The first thing I noticed
was the strong odor - it transported me back to my first fetal pig
dissection. Ahhh...the tangy, formalin-esque smell was mixed with
an almost citrus twist that insured I would not be tasting this one.
I immediately had to tear into the green flesh and reveal the husk -
and the tannins ended up staining my fingers a nice, Oaky brown for
the next TWO WEEKS. The juicy stain was yellowish, then turned
a darker and darker brown as it got all over me. I never found an
effective way to remove staining tannins - any ideas?

The husk is deeply ridged and non-splitting . It looks like a fat
, 3-D Valentine's heart that is very hard to crack open. I
smashed one in the cemetery parking under my tennis shoe, but it
took a while. It might be easier with a hammer or running over it
with the car, but the juices would get everywhere. It's a lot of work
for a little bit of nut.




















The leaflets got me really exited because they are so big! (That's
what she said.) There are typically 15-23 leaflets, yellowy green-
colored, tapering to a pointed end. They were really fuzzy - I
couldn't get over how soft and fuzzy they feel. These would make
really great, make-believe wings for a kid - or really anyone
playing pretend in the forest.



















The bark looks a lot like a large version of the black husk of the nut.
It's deeply fissured with ridges that go vertically and criss-cross. The
ridges are gray to black, and they are brown underneath if you break
off a piece.

This one was pretty tall (they can grow over 100 feet), so I couldn't
reach any branches to climb -and it was too wide around to properly
grip. Next time, Gadget!

Later in the day, my tour partner (Jerome Yorke, who takes many
of the pictures featured here) and I spotted snapping turtle crossing
the road. We stopped to make sure it wouldn't meet its demise on
the highway, and we found it walking through an area practically
covered with Black Walnuts. The footage looks more like we were
on a driving range, peppered with balls.




Where does Black Walnut come from?

Black Walnuts are native to the Midwest and Eastern, Central US.
You can find them in mixed hardwood forests, pastures,
meadows, and slopes. It grows well beside rivers in the area from Ontario,
Canada, down to Central Texas, and over to Florida. It was introduced
to Europe in 1629 - grown there for its sought-after wood.














A Little History of Use

1. Nicknamed our "best friend in times of war and peace".
2. Native Americans and early settlers used it for food, dyes,
ink, medicine, fence posts, gun stocks, and furniture.
3. Ancient Greeks and Romans used the hull for intestinal issue,
calling it the "imperial nut".
4. Used in Russian folk medicine since the 17th Century.
5. Chinese medicine promotes eating the nuts for physical
strength.
6. Texas folk medicine used the extract for Scorpion bites and
"the bite of a mad dog".
7. Black Walnut's strong, stable, dark and beautiful heartwood
is used for expensive furniture, flooring, coffins and gun stocks.
8. Thin slices (1/28th inch) are used as a veneer,
glued to less expensive wood - so the world at large can
enjoy its beauty.
9. The staining juice (tannin) of the fleshy drupes was used as
hair dye by early settlers. (It's hard to imagine that early
settlers had time for hair dye.) Also used today as natural
handicraft dye.
10. Some attest it is a natural remedy for acne, thyroid disease, colitis,
eczema, hemorrhoids, ringworm, sore throats, tonsillitis, skin
irritations and wounds.
11. Some use it as a laxative and for general digestive issues.
12. It is suggested that its "anti-parasite" properties help for people
traveling to areas with questionable water supplies.
13. The nuts contain Omega 3 fatty acids and antioxidants folate
and vitamin E.
14. A few herbal medicine practitioners (who believe cancer is caused
by a parasite) make a tincture from Black Walnut hulls, wormwood
and cloves - they claim this will kill those parasites and about 100
others. So far, there are no studies that show this.
15. The seeds are pressed to make Walnut Oil.
16. The nutmeat is used in all kids of food products ( e.g. ice cream, cakes,
cookies, fudge, pies, salads )
17. The shells are used in making products like abrasive cleaners,
cosmetics, oil well drilling and water filtration.
18. People just eat 'em because they are tasty, too. There is much more
demand than supply on these nuts.


Other Fun Stuff

• You can identify Black Walnut in other seasons or when it is too young to bear fruit by cutting a twig at an angle. Black walnuts have a brown, chambered pith, kind of like a honeycomb. A Butternut looks the same but the pith is pale yellow.
  
• Other identifying traits are large : horse-faced leaf scars on the twigs, large, naked buds (no scales over growing leaves), and the smell of the bark and leaves.
• Hickories and Pecans are first cousins to the Black Walnut.
• A substance called juglone is found in the drupes, roots and leaves. It is a respiratory inhibitor to many plants - meaning that there are many plants that have stunted growth or die in the presence Black Walnut. Some plants are resistant to Juglone.
  
• Juglone stains an orange-brown color, and it is used commercially dying for food, cosmetics, hair, ink, clothes, wool and other fabrics. The industry calls it C.I. Natural Brown 7.
  
• The Black Walnut capital of the world is Stockton, MO - home of the largest processing plant. 65% of the world's Black Walnut harvest is from hand harvesting wild trees there.
  

What else is cool about Black Walnuts?

With all this, I still can't recall what a Black Walnut tastes like -
so that will be my duty tomorrow. Has anyone used them medicinally
and have a story to tell? Anyone find creative or devious uses for the
staining tannin? Or found a way to remove the stains from hands?
Any interesting nicknames or uses I couldn't find?

Make like a tree.

Here is how I smashed open the Black Walnut and got my dyed my fingers for 2 weeks...