Platycarya strobilacea ("Nogurumi")

Japanese name: ノグルミ （野胡桃）
Scientific name: Platycarya strobilacea

[Overview]
A deciduous tree 5–10 m tall, sometimes reaching about 30 m.
It is found at sunny forest edges in the mountains and in Akamatsu forests.
The bark is gray to yellowish brown and shallowly fissured lengthwise.
Young branches are at first densely covered with brown soft hairs.
The leaves are alternate, odd-pinnately compound, 20–30 cm long, and consist of 3–9 pairs of leaflets.
The leaflets are lanceolate to lanceolate-oblong, 5–10 cm long and 1–3 cm wide, with sharp teeth on the margin.
The underside of the leaves has oil dots, and hairs grow sparsely on the veins.
The leaf axis and petiole have soft hairs.
There are male flowers and female flowers, both borne in spikes; some plants are protogynous and others protandrous.
In protogynous plants, the female inflorescence stands upright at the tip of the current year's branch and is surrounded by upright male inflorescences.
In protandrous plants, the male inflorescence stands upright at the tip of the current year's branch and the female inflorescence is borne beneath it.
The male inflorescence is a slender yellow cylinder 4–10 cm long, the axis of the inflorescence has brown hairs, and each male flower has 8–10 stamens enclosed in a single bract.
The female inflorescence is a yellowish green oblong 1.5–2 cm long, and each female flower has one pistil enclosed in one bract and two bracteoles.
Pine-cone-like fruiting spikes, ovate-elliptic and 2–3 cm long, are formed, with pointed bracts densely overlapping.
The fruit is a nut about 5 mm long with winged bracteoles.

[Uses]
The leaves are used medicinally.
Tannin is obtained from the bark, and the wood is also useful.
When the wood is burned, it gives off a distinctive fragrance.
Dried fruiting spikes are used as flower arrangement material.

[Cultivation]
Propagate from seed.
It prefers a sunny, well-drained, fertile place with moderate moisture.
It is vigorous and easy to grow, but it becomes a large tree and needs plenty of space.
There are no particular pests or diseases.

View this page in Japanese (日本語)