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Plant

Pecan

Carya illinoinensis

Also known as: Carya illinoinensis

A large deciduous hickory native to the south-central United States and northern Mexico, producing the only major commercial tree nut indigenous to North America. Cultivated for buttery oil-rich seeds eaten fresh, pressed for oil, and central to American pie and confectionery traditions. The U.S. and Mexico together produce the vast majority of the world's crop, with Georgia, New Mexico, and Texas leading U.S. output.

Scientific

Carya illinoinensis is a long-lived deciduous tree in family Juglandaceae, reaching 20–40 m with pinnately compound leaves. Monoecious with wind-pollinated catkins; cultivars are dichogamous (male and female flowers mature at different times on the same tree), so commercial orchards interplant complementary cultivars for cross-pollination. The fruit is a drupe — the familiar “nut” is the seed inside a thin woody shell within a green husk that splits at maturity.

Cultural

Indigenous to the Mississippi River basin and lower Rio Grande, pecans were a major wild-harvest food for Indigenous peoples of those regions long before European contact — the English name derives from a Powhatan-Algonquian word pakani for hard-shelled nuts. The U.S. pecan-pie tradition (a Southern dessert built on pecans, corn syrup, and butter) is a 20th-century industrial-era creation; pre-industrial use was simpler — toasted, ground into meal, or pressed for oil.

Global production

The U.S. and Mexico produce ~90% of the world’s pecans. Georgia is the largest U.S. producer; New Mexico and Texas follow. South Africa, Australia, and Argentina have growing orchards in regions with hot summers and mild winters.

See also

Auto-generated from this entry’s typed relations: frontmatter, grouped by relation type so the editorial signal isn’t flattened.

  • Shares approach with: [[walnut]] · [[hickory]]
  • Member of: [[plants]]
  • Grown by: [[lakeview-pecans]] · [[pecan-outlet]] · [[shute-pecan-company]]

Sources

  • USDA NRCS Plants Database — Carya illinoinensis
  • FAO commodity statistics
  • Wikipedia — Pecan

A plant entry in the 0mn1.one [[directory]].

Grown by

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Farms and nurseries in the 0mn1.one directory that grow pecan. Each is a real working operation — visit, buy from, learn from.

What links here, and how

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Scientific

grows

General

shares approach with

  • Macadamia both relatively recent additions to commercial nut economies; both with short cultivation histories outside their native ranges

4 inbound links · 3 outbound