California Walnut Tree
The California Walnut (J. Californica, Wats.) has small, sweet, thin-shelled nuts, faintly creased and somewhat flattened at each end. The tree is graceful and symmetrical, with luxuriant foliage, of cheerful light green. It grows to medium height on the bottom lands of the coast region from the lower course of the 'Sacramento River to the foothills of the San Bernardino Mountains, where it climbs to an elevation of 3,000 feet and becomes a stunted shrub.The chief value of this tree is that it serves as a hardy stock for the cultivated J. regia, and as such has extended nut culture north to central California. Seedlings of the native tree are root grafted with cions of French varieties, and old trees are successfully top grafted. Independent of this signal service to horticulture, the California walnut is a fine ornamental and nut tree.