Carya aquatica

The bitter pecan tree or water pecan tree is a large pecan hickory and is member of the walnut or Juglandaceae family. It is native to the American South, on the Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Plains from southeastern Virginia to southern Florida, Alabama, west into eastern Texas, and the Mississippi Valley north to southern Illinois. As a moderately large tree, it can reach over 30 m in height.

The species is found on clay flats and in backwater areas near streams and rivers and is a major component of wetland forests.

• Leaves are alternate, pinnately compound, odd-pinnate, from 20–40 cm long, with 7–15 finely curved, lance-shaped, serrated , green above and paler and sometimes hairy below. Leaves turn yellow in the fall.
• The species is monoecious. Male (staminate) flowers are in yellow-green hanging catkins typically in pairs of 3, up to 5–7.5 cm long; female (pistillate) flowers are small, yellowish-green and angled.
• Fruit is enclosed in a thin, 4-winged husk where they split open; the nut is oval to egg-shaped, 2.5–3.8 cm long , conspicuously flattened.
• Twig is slender, greenish brown to gray-brown, often with scruffy fuzz; buds are flattened, pointed and often curved, covered with scruffy yellow-brown fuzz; leaf scar is shallowly three lobed.
• Bark is smooth, light gray when young, aging to a gray-brown and splitting into narrow, loose shaggy scales.