The round nut grows in a thick green husk, from which the pioneers made a brown dye. It has a dark, irregular, hard shell that is hard to crack, but the sweet, edible, very distinctly foavored kernel makes the effort worthwhile.
Black Walnut is a prized hardwood. The brown, fine-grained wood is used for gunstocks, furniture, and cabinets. Black Walnut is a tree of rich, open woods and roadsides and has often been used as a shade tree. The large, fragrant leaves have 15 or more leaflets, each finely toothed and ending in a llong point. They are smooth above, hairy below.
