Editing Juglans (section)

===Wood===
[[File:Walnut pith.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.2|Walnut shoot cut longitudinally to show chambered [[pith]], scale in mm]]

The common walnut, and the black walnut and its allies, are important for their attractive timber, which is hard, dense, tight-grained and polishes to a very smooth finish. The color is dark chocolate or similar in the heartwood changing by a sharp boundary to creamy white in the sapwood. When kiln-dried, walnut wood tends toward a dull brown color, but when air-dried can become a rich purplish-brown. Because of its color, hardness and grain, it is a prized furniture and carving wood.

When walnut [[vascular cambium]] is involved in a crotch (a branch fork), it behaves unusually, producing characteristic "crotch figure" in the wood which it makes. The grain figure exposed when a crotch in a walnut log is cut in the plane of its one entering branch and two exiting branches is attractive and sought after.

There are some differences between the wood of the European walnut (''[[Juglans regia]]'') and the wood of the black walnut (''[[Juglans nigra]]''). For example, ''Juglans regia'' wood sometimes has patches with a wavy texture.<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgDO3dO0MgM&t=1156s Youtube video] CURLY WALNUT BEAUTY !!! WOW !!!</ref> Black walnut wood tends to be darker than European walnut wood, and can suffer from paler sapwood that only really comes to light when the wood has been planed.

Walnut wood has been the timber of choice for gun makers for centuries, including the [[Gewehr 98]] and [[Lee–Enfield]] rifles of the First World War. It remains one of the most popular choices for rifle and shotgun stocks, and is generally considered to be the premium – as well as the most traditional – wood for gun stocks, due to its resilience to compression along the grain. Walnut is also used in [[Luthier|lutherie]] and for the body of [[pipe organ]]s.

Walnut [[burl]]s (or "burrs" in the rest of the world) are commonly used to create bowls and other turned pieces. Walnut burl [[Wood veneer|veneer]] is one of the most valuable and highly prized by cabinet makers and prestige car manufacturers.

The wood of the [[butternut (tree)|butternut]] and related Asian species is of much lower value, softer, coarser, less strong and heavy, and paler in colour.

Freshly sawn walnut heartwood may be greenish in color, but with exposure to air this color quickly changes to brown due to oxidation of the pigment.

In North America, forestry research has been undertaken, mostly on ''J.&nbsp;nigra'', aiming to improve the quality of planting stock and markets. In some areas of the US, black walnut is the most valuable commercial timber species.<ref name=ohioline>{{Cite web|url=http://ohioline.osu.edu/b700/b700_22.html|title=Arquivo.pt|access-date=2017-04-07|archive-date=2009-07-08|archive-url=http://arquivo.pt/wayback/20090708061425/http://ohioline.osu.edu/b700/b700_22.html|url-status=bot: unknown}}</ref> The Walnut Council<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.walnutcouncil.org|title=Walnut Council--Growing Walnut and Other Fine Hardwoods|publisher=Walnutcouncil.org|access-date=2015-07-16}}</ref> is the key body linking growers with scientists. In Europe, various EU-led scientific programmes have studied walnut growing for timber.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/opencountry_20020330.shtml|title=BBC Radio 4 - Open Country|publisher=Bbc.co.uk|access-date=2015-07-16}}</ref>

The [[Cherokee Indians]] would produce a black dye from walnut bark, which they used to dye cloth.<ref>{{Citation |contribution=History of the Cherokees, 1830–1846 |title=Chronicles of Oklahoma |last1=Knight |first1=Oliver |publisher=Oklahoma Historical Society|place=Oklahoma City|year=1956–57|page=164|oclc=647927893 |language=en }}</ref> As early as the 2nd century CE, shells and kernels of the edible walnut were used to make a dye solution in the [[Levant]].<ref>[[Mishnah]] (''Shevi'it'' [https://archive.org/details/DanbyMishnah/page/n76/mode/1up 7:3] [p. 47])</ref><ref>{{cite book |author-last=Foreman |author-first=Grant |title=The Five Civilized Tribes|publisher=University of Oklahoma Press |location=Norman|year=1934|pages=283–284|language=en |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gGtLnSkqkekC&pg=PA283 |isbn=978-0-8061-0923-7}}</ref>