Pecan

The Pecan (Carya illinoinensis, commonly misspelled illinoensis) is a species of hickory native to southeastern North America, from Texas and Mississippi to southern Iowa and Indiana. It is a deciduous tree, growing to 25–40 m in height, and can be grown approximately from USDA hardiness zones 5 to 9, provided summers are also hot and humid. Pecan trees may live and bear nuts for more than three hundred years, and are one of the largest species of hickory. The Pecan harvest for growers is traditionally around mid-October, and they grow wild in Texas, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Louisiana, South Carolina and other southeastern states of the U.S. as well as northeast Mexico.

The leaves are alternate, 40–70 cm long, and pinnate with 9–13 (rarely up to 17) leaflets, each leaflet 5–12 cm long and 2–6 cm broad. The flowers are wind-pollinated, and monoecious, with staminate and pistillate catkins on the same tree. The Pecan trees are mostly self-incompatible, because most cultivars, being clones derived from wild trees, show incomplete dichogamy. Generally, two or more trees of different cultivars must be present to pollenize each other. The fruit is an oval to oblong nut, 2.6–6 cm long and 1.5–3 cm broad, dark brown with a rough husk 3–4 mm thick, which splits off at maturity to release the thin-shelled nut.