← hickory
freely propagated
Neilson
Carya ovata
The record
- Parentage
- Carya ovata
- Origin
- Named by J. H. Corsan for Jas Neilson · Near Waterford, southern Ontario · named 1934
- Rights
- freely propagated — Named in 1934, before US plant patents applied to it in any recorded way. No IP claim found in the sources consulted.
- Hardiness
- A northern selection, suited to colder ground
- Ranking
- Placed first among shagbark cultivars in the Society of Ontario Nut Growers’ ranking
Description
The northern shagbark, named in 1934 for the man whose tree it was.
Ontario growers rank it at the head of the shagbark list, and the reason is latitude rather than nut quality alone: a hickory that finishes its crop in a short season is a different proposition from one that merely survives the winter. The same distinction runs through the pecan file, where northern cultivars are selected for early kernel fill rather than for cold tolerance as such.
The naming convention here is worth a note. ‘Neilson’ honours the owner of the tree, not a breeder — as do ‘Major’, ‘Posey’ and most of the older records in this database. A cultivar name is usually a record of who noticed.