We (my 5 year old and I) found these nuts in the woods around our house. Well, maybe they're not nuts - maybe they're a droupe or a legume or something but I'll call them a nut. I can't ID them whatsoever. They're close to a Pistachio shell in look and feel, but the nut inside is pretty different. The outer shell is about 1/2" long. Very hard but thin shell that is brittle when cracked. The nut inside is tightly fit to the shell and is half covered in a very thin matte skin while the other half is glossy and bare. The inside flesh is light green and moist. I didn't taste them but the smell is slightly acrid with a pleasant nutty note. I liked the smell but both my wife and the 5 year old thought it was not a good smell. (What does that say about me?!)
On to the pics:
Anybody have any idea what these are?
I haven't found the tree they came from, but since the trees don't have leaves yet, I'm not sure how much help that would be anyway.
SVreX
MegaDork
3/30/20 12:41 p.m.
Sure looks like an acorn to me.
I'm not used to an acorn having that very hard, brittle shell. We have tons of acorns around and am just not familiar with ones that look quite like this. (Keep in mind, the shell is the whitish thing at the bottom of the first pic.)
All the acorns I've seen are round about the "equator." These seen to have a ridge that delineates two halves? Or am I just seeing that wrong?
Also, acorns have tops. Any tops laying on the ground where these were found?
Plant a few in a flowerpot, see what comes up?
Edit: Acorns, for reference. Looks different from what the OP has, at least to my eye.
Look like horse chestnuts to me, never saw acorns like that.
Yes they have a ridge around the perimeter. They didn't have caps anywhere near them, but they were laying on the ground in the woods. But there is no flat spot where the cap typically attaches to the acorn. (The circular detent of different color/texture in the acorn pic above.)
I'm not saying these aren't acorns, but they don't look like any acorns I've seen before, or like any I can find pictures of online. Acorns usually have a leathery shell and this is very hard and brittle like a pistachio.
Some type of hickory nut?
Hickory nuts are rock hard and very convoluted inside, like a walnut. I know, because as a kid, I would break them open with a hammer and eat them. There isn't much to eat in your average hickory nut.
They might be weathered burr oak acorns. Did any still have caps on them?
Ginko nut, maybe?
How big are they? What were the majority of fallen leaves under the tree like?
Hey, ginkgo nut looks pretty close?
Ginkgo nut! That's gotta be them!
I'll look around that part of the woods when we're in there again and see if I spot the tree they came from. If it had fruit on it at the time I'm sure I would have spotted it - the smell is hard to miss. I've affectionately nicknames them "E36 M3berries." I didn't know we had any ginkgo trees. I'm excited to spot them. Apparently you can eat them but don't want to eat a lot of them or over a long period. I'm not sure how I feel about food like that. Then again that's true of tuna and I still eat that.
Ginkgo trees turn bright yellow in autumn and have very distinct shaped leaves.
Definitely ginko tree. The nuts from the female trees smell like turds. They are all over NYC and DC because they can thrive in urban enviroments....and they're cheap
