Burton
Natural Carya ovata × C. illinoinensis hybrid — a hican
The record
- Parentage
- Natural Carya ovata × C. illinoinensis hybrid — a hican
- Origin
- Owensboro, Kentucky · introduced in the late 1800s
- Rights
- freely propagated — Introduced in the late nineteenth century, long predating the US Plant Patent Act of 1930. No IP claim found in the sources consulted.
- Nut
- Richly flavoured
- Yield
- Productive, but reported erratic between sites and between years
Description
A natural shagbark-by-pecan hybrid found near Owensboro, Kentucky and in circulation since the late 1800s — one of the oldest named hicans.
The flavour reports are consistently good and the productivity reports are not. That split is the honest summary of the whole hican group: a wild hybrid selected for its nut says nothing about how it will crop on ground it has never been tested on. ‘McAlester’ is generally named as the more reliable of the widely propagated selections; ‘Burton’ and ‘Henke’ are described as productive some years at some sites and disappointing at others.
A hican is a reasonable thing to plant as one tree in a diverse planting. It is a poor thing to plant as a block on the strength of a catalogue description.