Resources < Wildlife Habitats < Guide to Native Plants of Georgia for Wildlife < Juglans cinerea

Butternut
Juglans cinerea

Butternut is a remarkable native nut tree with a long history of use as a food, a dye, for wood, and as a medicinal plant. Like other members of the Walnut family, Butternut is allelopathic. All Walnuts produce a biotoxin called juglone, which inhibits the growth of nearby plants. Other plants must make direct physical contact with Walnut parts in order to be affected. Juglone is concentrated most highly in root tissues and fruit husks, with lesser amounts in the leaves, catkins, buds, and inner bark. Leave a wide spacing between Butternuts and other plants and trees which it may kill. The most sensitive plants to juglone are nonnative plants, because unlike native plants, they have never developed an evolutionary resistance to the chemical. The chemical is nontoxic to people and animals.

Butternuts are excellent for making baked goods, candies (including Maple-Butternut candies in New England), and have excellent oils and flavors. They become rancid soon after maturing, so pick and use them quickly. Nut production begins at around age 20.

Aside from the nuts, Butternut has great value in a variety of other ways. Butternut wood is light in color, rot resistant, soft to shape, and shines extraordinarily well with polish. It is a favored wood in making furniture and woodcarving. Butternut bark and nut rinds were formerly an important light yellow to dark brown dye. Colonists, settlers, and Confederate soldiers made home-made clothing dyed with Butternut. Butternut’s outer bark was formerly used in medicinal teas for treating toothaches and dysentery. The inner bark has been used as a cathartic, and during the American Revolution was employed in treating smallpox, dysentery, and other gastronomic disorders.  

Family: Juglandaceae (Walnut)

Description: A small to medium-sized tree with a forked or crooked trunk and spreading branches. Bark is light, ashy-gray, with flat-topped shiny ridges in diamond-shaped patterns. Leaves are alternate, pinnately compound, 15-25” long, with 11-17 oblong-lanceolate leaflets with serrated margins. Rachis is stout and pubescent with a well-developed terminal leaflet. Flowering is monoecious and occurs in mid-late summer. Males are single-stemmed, yellow-green catkins, 2 ½-5 ½” long. Female flowers are on short spikes near the ends of twigs, green-yellow in color. Fruits are oblong and lemon shaped, with yellow-green sticky indehiscent husks. They contain irregularly ribbed nuts with sweet, oily meats and mature in late summer.

Size: 40-80 feet tall and 30-50 feet wide
 
Habit: A small to medium-sized tree with a forked or crooked trunk and spreading branches

Growth Rate: Slow

Light: Full sun required for best fruiting; intolerant of shade

Planting and Care: Butternut requires good drainage and is intolerant of shade. Like other walnut species, it produces a biotoxin called juglone that inhibits the growth of many other plants without resistance to the toxin. Plant with wide spacing between Butternut specimens, and keep away from other beloved plants. Sow nuts in the final desired location, as Butternut’s taprooted growth causes transplants to rarely succeed.

Ornamental Value: Butternut has high ornamental value in its exquisite and unusual bark. It is not only interestingly patterned, but lighter in color than many other trees and therefore of high interest in dormancy. The foliage and nuts are also visual assets.

Landscape Use: Because of Butternut’s allelopathic (toxic) tendencies, plant with a great deal of extra spacing between specimens. Also, do not plant where its toxins may compromise the growth of or kill other beloved trees or plants, especially nonnatives. Plant trees in rows or groups to ensure adequate pollination. The litter of the plant will cause staining on surfaces that it contacts, especially wood and concrete. Do not plant where litter will become a problem.

Wildlife Benefits: Nuts are eaten by a variety of small mammals including squirrels, chipmunks, and other rodents. The leaves and young twigs are browsed by deer. Butternut leaves, along with Black Walnut, together host over 100 species of Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths), which in turn feed birds and ultimately predatory birds, reptiles, and mammals. Specialist species that eat no other trees include the Walnut Caterpillar, Angus’s Datana, and the Gray-Edged Bomolocha. They are also preferred hosts for the beautiful Luna and Regal moths.

Native Habitat: Native to eastern North America from Georgia north to Quebec, west to Manitoba, and south to Arkansas. It favors mesic woods, coves, terraces, and river banks.

Propagation: Nuts stratified for 2-4 months; sow in fall for best results; transplants rarely succeed

Text by Kevin Tarner, Georgia Wildlife Federation