Meet the shagbark hickory tree

A goddess, a president, and a tree.

An unlikely trio, but there is a connection: the shagbark hickory tree. This tree is deserving of superlatives, if not deity and presidency.

One of the dominant trees in our woodlands, it stands tall and strong. And it's got more uses than you can shake a stick at.

Stretching way back in time, the hickory was deified in Greek mythology. Among the pantheon reigned Carya, goddess of the nut tree. (Who knew?) Being a goddess, of course, Carya required a festival in her honor. In her case, the festival was called the Caryateia. People even made up a dance to be performed at her gala.

Fast forward to the New World and more modern times, where the genus Carya includes Carya ovata, the shagbark hickory. At the time of European arrival, the shagbark was one of the dominant trees in the great eastern forests, growing alongside oaks and chestnut trees. It grew tall and strong, with many individuals living the span of two or more centuries.

In the youth of our country when candidates for political leadership abounded, the woods were said to be full of "presidential timber." President Andrew Jackson became known as "Old Hickory" for his strength on the battlefield and his tough political stance. The younger statesman James Polk, also a strong and resolute leader, became known as "Young Hickory."

Politics and mythology notwithstanding, the shagbark hickory is a stalwart tree in our woodlands today. Reaching 60 - 80 feet at maturity, shagbarks can attain diameters from 12 - 24 inches. They grow slowly - more slowly, in fact, than oak trees.

Some shagbark hickories have reached the ripe old age of 300 years. Few reach that age today, because they are among the most useful, and therefore harvestable, trees in the woods.

Shagbark is arguably the easiest tree to identify in our sylva. In the springtime, the leaf buds are big, egg-shaped, and covered loosely in orange-brown scales. As the season unfolds, so do the buds, resembling flowers as the leaf scales fold back like lovely petals. In summer, hickory leaves take over the tree canopy - big, compound leaves, each with five leaflets. In fall, the signature hickory nuts fall to the ground and break open along four sutures, or lines.

The most distinctive feature of the shagbark hickory, however, is best seen in winter. Large plates of exfoliating bark curl up and give the tree a tousled appearance. It's the tree with the perennial bad hair day. No other tree in the woods looks quite as messy.

As we're admonished not to judge a book by its cover, we should not judge a tree by its bark. The wood of the shagbark hickory is superlative. The National Forest Service's manual of native trees states that "no commercial species of wood is equal to it in combined strength, toughness, hardness, and stiffness." It is also durable and shock resistant. Together these attributes lend the wood to dozens of uses, from wagon wheels and ax handles, flooring and furniture, ladders and baseball bats, lacrosse sticks, golf clubs, and more.

American Indians knew of the hickory's usefulness and fashioned bows and baskets from its wood. Perhaps more valuable, however, were the hickory nuts.

R. Kelly Coffey of the Appalachian Voices website wrote, "Native Americans had a curious practice of pounding the nuts and tossing them into boiling water. The heat separated a cream-colored oily substance from the nuts, which was skimmed off and stored as a pasty material the Indians called 'pawcohiccora' in the Algonquin tongue. Indians used pawcohiccora in ways similar to butter; i.e. as a spread and an ingredient in corn cakes and other dishes. English-speaking settlers soon shortened the Indian word to 'hickory,' broadened its meaning to the name for the tree itself, and referred to the creamy nut extract as 'hickory milk.' This oily substance became economically valuable in colonial trade; one quart of hickory milk, for example, could be exchanged for 19 pounds of pork."

The shagbark hickory's most popular value goes up in smoke, in more ways than one. It is prized for fuelwood and has warmed hearth and home for centuries. Measured in BTUs, the actual amount of heat produced by hickory wood ranks in the top three of our native trees. When burned, hickory logs crank out tremendous heat and combust slowly.

It is favored today, as it was in pioneer days, for woodstoves and cooking fires.

"A cord of (hickory) generates heat equivalent to 175 gallons of fuel oil, or a little over a ton of coal," according to Coffey.

Ah, but there's another use for the shagbark hickory - one that people have savored over the centuries. The smoke produced by burning green hickory is used for curing food, imparting the famous hickory-smoked flavor of ham, fish, and cheeses. What would barbecue sauce be without hickory smoke flavoring?

A lesser known culinary use of this versatile tree is hickory syrup. Sources are vague about the production of this syrup, making it somewhat of a trade secret. The earthy-tasting liquid is in high demand from chefs and connoisseurs throughout the country and overseas as well.

"I like to mix it with bourbon as a marinade for ribs," the late Julia Child said. Remember to ask for hickory syrup and bourbon on your ribs at the next rib fest.

Hickory tea, not to be mistaken for syrup, had an altogether different meaning in old Appalachia. Parents used this "hickory tea" in the fine art of disciplining children. Kids in misbehaved were warned that they'd get "a dose of hickory tea" - a euphemism for a "switching" with a branch of a hickory tree.

Humans are not the only creatures who are beneficiaries of the shagbark hickory's multiple uses. Hickory trees are important components of ecological communities, providing shelter and food for many species of wildlife. Under the large peeling plates of bark many animals find refuge. Bats roost and mourning cloak butterflies wait out the winter in the shelter of the strips of bark. Woodpeckers and other insect-eating birds glean the tree trunk for nutritious meals. Caterpillars of the regal moth and the walnut sphinx moth feed on hickory leaves. And squirrels, of course, feast on the bounty of nuts produced in autumn.

• Valerie Blaine is the nature programs manager for the Forest Preserve District of Kane County. Send comments and questions to blainevalerie@kaneforest.com.