Pic 1. Pic 2.. They look a little like hickory, but I don’t think they’re hickory. The leaves as I recall–which had already turned brown and were mostly strewn around under the tree–were somewhat lobate, unlike hickory. North central South Carolina.
Black walnut?
I’d go with chestnuts.
They look a lot like hickory to me. Are you sure you matched the leaves to the tree that made the nut?
Definitely a walnut. Black walnut is a North American native.
Not that it will be of much help, but, this is a satellite view of the tree up under which it was found up under. Doesn’t look like any walnut I’ve ever seen, but that’s not to say I’ve seen them all.
For your perusal:
Here is Red Hickory, Carya ovalis.
Here isPignut Hickory, Carya glabra.
Chestnuts are too smooth. Black walnuts are too rough. Hickories are just right.
Thanks. Red hickory does seem to match up pretty well. The only thing that bothers me is the leaves, unless they were blown under this tree from something nearby. If I’m ever invited back, I’ll get a sample of those, too.
Eastern or western half?
Those don’t look like chestnuts, more like *horse *chestnuts or buckeyes. They taste like a horse’s lower-than-chest nuts according to House. Also they’re poisonous (to man and horse alike). Actual chestnuts look like more this, with one markedly flatter side, a little hairy pointy end and the hilum on the other end.
That being said, in either case it would be hard to mistake these nuts for any other since they come in unmistakable spiky capsules.
Agreed, the ones in that example (not the OP’s) look like horse chestnuts. My grandfather had a horse chestnut tree on his farm, and the nuts are very high-gloss and smooth. (In my professional opinion as a farmer’s grandkid, they’re ideal for chucking down the paved road and seeing what kind of distance and how many times you can make them skip.)
Walnut.
I went to high school in a rather posh, historical school (IIRC built under Napoleon), complete with a huge park filled with conker trees. Every year come late autumn, regular as clockwork, the head teacher would make an official announcement that “the principal has asked me to tell you to refrain from flinging chestnuts at each other, somebody will get hurt” or “please stop putting chestnuts inside your snowballs, thanks”.
Inevitably followed a week or so later by “no really, guys, stop it, somebody got hurt”.
Sometimes it was about not flinging them over the walls either because they’d cracked a motorist’s windshield or beaned an innocent passer-by, however. So you see, we just couldn’t get a break. It was like Catholicism all over again : here’s these super fun toys for you kids but DON’T TOUCH THEM ! 