Walnut Family

Various species of walnuts and hickories are economically important trees for both their wood and their edible fruits which may be gathered in the wild but are now mostly grown in plantations.

The wood of black, English, and other walnuts is close-grained, dark-brown colored, and very strong. Walnut wood is used to manufacture lumber and veneers for fine furnitures and cabinets, and it is sometimes carved into components for artisanal furniture. A well-formed tree of black walnut with a good grain and solid core can be worth more than $12,000 as raw material for fine lumber or veneer. Because of this enormous per-tree value, walnut trees are sometimes illegally "rustled" from private or public property to be sold in a black market.

Hickories also provide an excellent hard wood, used to manufacture fine furniture and wooden baseball bats.

The best-known edible fruits harvested from species in the walnut family are those of the European or English walnut (Juglans regia), the black walnut (J. nigra), the pecan (Carya illinoensis), and the hickory (Carya ovata). The first three of these species are commonly grown in plantations established for the production of their fruits. When they reach a large size, the walnuts may be harvested from the plantations for their extremely valuable wood. However, this is not done for pecans because their wood does not have qualities that are as desirable as those of large walnut trees.

The most important use of the fruits of walnuts and hickories is directly for eating. However, fresh walnut seeds contain about 50% of their weight as oil, which can be expressed from these fruits and used as an edible oil or to manufacture soap, perfume, cosmetics, or paint.

Walnuts have sometimes been used as minor folk medicines. The inner bark of the black walnut can be used as a laxative, while the fruit rind has been used to treat intestinal parasites, ulcers, and syphilis. An infusion of boiled leaves has been used to get rid of bedbugs.

The doctrine of signatures was a medicinal theory that developed in Europe during the Middle Ages (about 500 to 1,500 years ago), but also occurred independently in some other cultures. This theory held that the potential usefulness of plants for medical purposes was revealed through the growth form of the plant or its parts. For example, a similarity between the form of the plant or its parts and some component of the human anatomy was commonly thought to reveal a signature of usefulness. When the hard, outer shell of a walnut is removed, the seed looks superficially like a human brain, viewed from above with the top of the skull removed. Consequently, it was believed that walnuts were somehow useful for the treatments of insanity and headaches.