American Black Walnut (Juglans nigra). Two American black walnut trees stand near the corner of Addison and Shakespeare Streets, one a shapely young tree seen here in glorious autumn yellow, the other bare and well-befitting the description by Hugh Johnson: ‘There can scarcely be a tree that puts on less of a show. It is one of the last bare trees of spring and the first of winter …. It stands looking like a puritan about to close the theatres, [but] what it offers is of the highest quality: the best timber and the best of all nuts.’ While not as good as the nuts of the English walnut, those of the American tree can still be pickled in vinegar, preserved in sugar, made into sauces, oil and liqueurs; they are used in ice cream, and confectionery as well as in salads and meat dishes. The husks produce a very fast, yellow-brown dye, and the ground shells can be used to clean and polish soft metals, plastics, fibreglass, wood and stone. Walnut wood is dark in colour, hard, dense, tight-grained; it gives an excellent polish which is much favoured for fine furniture, and the burrs are used for turning and veneer. Because of its weight and smoothness and especially its resilience to compression along the grain, it is indispensable for gunstocks
