09/16/2026
Thank you Kevin for bringing attention to this interesting tree and our work to propagate them at Sanford Community Forest! Want to get involved? We have volunteer days coming up in October - all ages and abilities are welcome! https://secure.lglforms.com/form_engine/s/R9Am7CWlkG4ILdsX6XI5hg
Shagbark Hickory Looks Scruffy, But It’s Tough as Nails
The shagbark hickory gets its name from its layered bark. Photo: Kevin McKeon
The regal moth, a giant silkworm species, seeks shagbark hickory trees for laying its eggs. Photo: David Albaugh
By Kevin McKeon, Maine Master Naturalist
It would be difficult to more aptly name a tree than the shagbark hickory. Its peeling, shaggy, very scaly bark is like no other, which offers many assets to many critters. The word hickory is from the indigenous Powhatan, an Algonquin-speaking people of the Northeast, centered along the Virginia coast. These folks crushed the hickory nuts, then boiled the mass in water. After passing the solution through strainers (probably made from sweetgrass), an oily, creamy, milk-like extraction was gleaned. The Powhatan called it Pawcohiccora — “hickory nut meat” or “hickory milk drink.” In the 1770s, renown naturalist William Bartram described the milk he saw being produced as being “as sweet and rich as cream and is an ingredient in most of their cookery, especially homony [sic] and corn cakes.”
Hickory nuts are encased inside a fleshy soft fruit and protected outside by a thin skin; this actually classifies hickory nuts as drupes, or stone fruits, like plums, peaches, cherries, and coconuts. (Those tiny individual juicy spheres in a single raspberry “berry” are all drupes, too!) Hickory nuts are quite nutritious, with a fat content as high as 80%, and are concentrated with healthy omega fatty acids, magnesium, vitamin E, and protein.
There are about 19 species of hickory trees on Earth, with about 12 native to North America. Found throughout the Northeastern United States, hickory is at its northernmost range in Maine, where we have two species: Shagbark and bitternut. Both are uncommon. Shagbark is almost exclusively found in the southern counties; bitternut hickory is listed as endangered in Maine, found in a couple of York County towns.
These slow-growing trees prefer humid, sheltered bottomlands, and fairly damp, loamy soil in which their long taproots can search for soil moisture. A 3-year-old tree may only be 18 inches high, but its taproot could easily reach down three feet. Difficulty with commercially producing shagbark hickory seedlings with these long roots, along with low ornamental demand for these trees, results in very low nursery production for the general public. As with most trees, it’s best to grow landscape specimens from seed to avoid transplanting operations, which often cause taproot damage, resulting in initial stunted growth and high mortality.
At the Sanford Community Forest, Three Rivers Land Trust is embarking on a challenging project to create a “pocket forest,” or demonstration stand, of shagbark hickory. Their seedlings are now growing in a Sanford Community Garden raised bed, using seeds (nuts) from my front yard, which may possess genetics from their ancestry of growing in our northern climate, making survival more likely. Careful transplanting is planned for this fall, after their leaves drop and the trees enter their dormancy period. Even under optimal transplanting conditions, soils, and care, a 60% mortality is common. Interestingly, when these taproots reached the bottom of the Community Garden’s raised bed — which is lined with landscape fabric for w**d suppression — the roots grew sideways, along the fabric. However, the growth of these taproots is governed by gravity (geotropism), so they’ll return to their downward soil pe*******on habit after transplanting.
