Juglandaceae

This MedLibrary.org supplementary page on Juglandaceae is provided directly from the open source Wikipedia as a service to our readers. Please see the note below on authorship of this content, as well as the Wikipedia usage guidelines. To search for other content from our encyclopedia supplement, please use the form below:

Juglandaceae
Juglans regia
Juglans regia
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Division: Magnoliophyta
Class: Magnoliopsida
Order: Fagales
Family: Juglandaceae
A. Richard ex Kunth
Genera

Alfaroa
Carya (hickory and pecan)
Cyclocarya (wheel wingnut)
Engelhardia (cheo)
Juglans (walnut)
Oreomunnea
Platycarya
Pterocarya (wingnut)

The Juglandaceae, also known as the Walnut Family, is a family of trees, or sometimes shrubs, in the order Fagales. Various members of this family are native to the Americas, Eurasia, and Southeast Asia.

Nut of Juglans regia
Nut of Juglans regia

Members of the walnut family have large aromatic leaves, that are usually alternate, but opposite in Alfaroa, Oreomunnia. The leaves are pinnately compound, or ternate, and usually 20-100 cm long.

The trees are wind-pollinated, the flowers usually arranged in catkins, and the fruit is a true botanical nut.

Foliage and seed catkin of Platycarya strobilacea
Foliage and seed catkin of Platycarya strobilacea

There are eight genera in the family, including the commercially important nut-producing trees walnut (Juglans), pecan (Carya illinoinensis), and hickory (Carya). The Persian walnut, Juglans regia, is one of the major nut crops of the world. Walnut and hickory are also valuable timber trees.

Tryma

Some fruits are borderline and difficult to categorize. Hickory nuts (Carya) and Walnuts (Juglans) in the Juglandaceae family grow within an outer husk; these fruits are technically drupes or drupaceous nuts, and thus not true botanical nuts. Tryma is a specialized term for such nut-like drupes.[1][2]


This fruit tree-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

Wikipedia content modification information:

  • This page was last modified on 5 October 2008, at 18:26.

Wikipedia Authorship and Review

Wikipedia content provided here is not reviewed directly by MedLibrary.org. Wikipedia content is authored by an open community of volunteers and is not produced by or in any way affiliated with MedLibrary.org.

Wikipedia Usage Guidelines

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article on "Juglandaceae".

The URL for this specific entry is:

All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details). Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.