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BeeTooman · Vegan Zealot Joined: 12 May 2006 Posts: 980

Pecan
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Pecan (Carya illinoinensis, commonly misspelled illinoensis) is a species of hickory, native to south-central North America, in the United States from southern Iowa, Illinois and Indiana east to western Kentucky and western Tennessee, south through Oklahoma, Arkansas, to Texas, Mississippi, and Louisiana; and in Mexico from Coahuila south to Jalisco and Veracruz.[1][2]

It is a large deciduous tree, growing to 20–40 m in height (rarely to 44 m,[2]; taller trees to 50–55 m have been claimed but not verified), with a trunk up to 2 m diameter. The leaves are alternate, 40–70 cm long, and pinnate with 9–17 leaflets, each leaflet 2–1 cm long and 2–7 cm broad. The flowers are wind-pollinated, and monoecious, with staminate and pistillate catkins on the same tree; the male catkins are pendulous, up to 18 cm long; the female catkins are small, with three to six flowers clustered together. The fruit is an oval to oblong nut, 2.6–6 cm long and 1.5–3 cm broad, dark brown with a rough husk 3–4 mm thick, which splits off in four sections at maturity to release the thin-shelled nut.[2][3][4][5]

Pecans first became known to Europeans in the 16th century; the Spanish explorer Cabeza de Vaca saw and wrote first about this plant.[citation needed] The Spaniards brought the pecan into Europe, Asia, and Africa beginning in the 16th century.

The nuts of the Pecan are edible, with a rich, buttery flavor. They can be eaten fresh or used in cooking, particularly in sweet desserts but also in some savory dishes. One of the most common desserts with the pecan as a central ingredient is the pecan pie, a traditional southern U.S. recipe. Pecans are also a major ingredient in praline candy, most often associated with New Orleans.

In addition to the pecan nut, the wood is also used in making furniture, in hardwood flooring, as well as flavoring fuel for smoking meats.

Pecans were one of the most recently domesticated major crops. Although wild pecans were well-known among the colonial Americans as a delicacy, the commercial growing of pecans in the United States did not begin until the 1880s.[6] Today, the U.S. produces between 80% and 95% of the world's pecans, with an annual crop of 150–200 thousand tonnes.[7] The nut harvest for growers is typically around mid-October. Historically, the leading Pecan-producing state in the U.S. has been Georgia, followed by Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma; they are also grown in Arizona and Hawaii. Outside the United States, pecans are grown in Australia, Brazil, China, Israel, Mexico, Peru and South Africa. They can be grown approximately from USDA hardiness zones 5 to 9, provided summers are also hot and humid.

Pecan trees may live and bear edible nuts for more than three hundred years. They are mostly self-incompatible, because most cultivars, being clones derived from wild trees, show incomplete dichogamy. Generally, two or more trees of different cultivars must be present to pollenize each other.
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