Common Name: Walnuts
Description: Decidous trees, rarely shrubs, monoecious; bark smooth or furrowed. Branchlets purplish brown, sparsely to densely glandular, pith chambered.
Leaves alternate, usually odd-pinnate; leaflets sessile or subsessile, uniform in size or median leaflets largest; leaflet margins usually serrate.
Male inflorescence a catkin, pendulous, produced on previous year's growth. Male flowers usually with numerous stamens. Female flowers solitary or in terminal racemes, erect or pendulous, produced on current season's growth; bracts entire, bracteoles 2 per flower; perianth 4; style branches plumose.
Fruit a drupelike nut enclosed in an adherent thick fibrous usually indehiscent husk covering a rough-ridged or rugose or smooth shell.
Distribution and occurrence: Commonly cultivated as ornamentals or fruit trees.
Text by KL Wilson (June 2008); edited S.F. McCune (Oct 2021)
Taxon concept:
| | Key to the species | |
| 1 | Leaves with 11–17 leaflets and pubescent, often viscid peduncle and rachis | Juglans ailantifolia |
| Leaves with 5–9 leaflets and more or less glabrous, not viscid peduncle and rachis | Juglans regia |
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