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United States / Grow / bitternut hickory

bitternut hickory (Carya cordiformis)
Photo: (c) Sandy Wolkenberg, some rights reserved (CC BY) (CC BY), via iNaturalist. Species-typical, not necessarily this cultivar.

bitternut hickory

Carya cordiformis · Juglandaceae · all Carya records · Wikipedia

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Enter your ZIP to see whether this is legal to plant in your state, and whether it survives your winter.

Bitternut hickory is rated fire resistant, with three regional sources reaching the same favorable conclusion.

The USDA Forest Service Northeastern Area and state Firewise programs place it in the most favorable category of their four-step Firewise scale. Ohio State University Extension gives it L flammability on a five-point scale, where L supports a recommendation. Virginia Cooperative Extension and Virginia Tech also assign L, the recommended rating on their three-point scale. The scales differ, but all three place bitternut hickory on the fire-resistant side.

The support is consistent but limited. The USDA classification comes from keyed curation, while the Ohio and Virginia ratings reflect expert experience. These are landscape-selection judgments using separate systems, not results from one shared measurement. They support treating the tree as relatively fire resistant, rather than promising how it will behave in every fire.

Bitternut hickory is a tree in the Juglandaceae family, reaching about 50 feet at maturity. It grows in full sun with moderate water and is hardy to USDA zone 6a. Its native range includes the southeastern, northeastern, north-central, and south-central United States. For a homeowner choosing among landscape trees, the published guidance is favorable, with appropriate caution because the primary support remains limited.

Form
tree
Mature height
~50 ft
Light
Full sun
Water need
moderate
Rated in
Ohio / Midwest; Virginia / Mid-Atlantic; eastern US
On this lot

1. Fire evidence and conditions

Fire evidence
Fire-resistant — location does not change the cited classification.
Placement evidence
1 source placement record; source schemes remain separate.
Evidence regions
Ohio / Midwest; Virginia / Mid-Atlantic; eastern US
Typed publication scope: 2 scopes across 2 cited fire sources
  • Firewise Landscaping (OSU Extension Bulletin 921) · Official scoped edition
    • OH; partial normalized coverage · 2006-03-01

      Ohio State University Extension Bulletin 921 is an Ohio publication that describes Ohio fire seasons and landscape conditions and labels nativity to Ohio. FireApproved publishes 352 exact source-owning plant records from its eight rated tables. This historical publication scope does not assert current extension endorsement or that a listed plant suits every Ohio site.

  • Virginia Firescapes — Firewise Landscaping for Woodland Homes (430-300) · Official scoped edition
    • VA; partial normalized coverage · 2009-04-15

      Virginia Cooperative Extension's publication opens with Virginia wildfire conditions, identifies its Virginia Firewise Landscaping Task Force, and labels plants native to Virginia. FireApproved publishes 306 exact source owners. Publication scope does not establish parcel suitability or current endorsement of this archived 2009 list.

2. Why this plant is relevant here

State distribution
Documented in AL, AR, CT, DC, DE, FL, GA, IA, IL, IN, KS, KY, LA, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MO, MS, NC, NE, NH, NJ, NY, OH, OK, PA, RI, SC, TN, TX, VA, VT, WI, WV.
Native range
Current cited native range in AL, AR, CT, DC, DE, FL, GA, IA, IL, IN, KS, KY, LA, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MO, MS, NC, NE, NH, NJ, NY, OH, OK, PA, RI, SC, TN, TX, VA, VT, WI, WV.
USDA hardiness
Documented minimum 2a; no upper limit is documented.

3. Legal, ecological, and broader status

How to read this page

The status above is computed from the cited rows below: independent recommendations can support a fire-resistant result, an avoid row can produce keep-away, and disagreement stays visible as conflict. Placement notes preserve each source’s own scheme rather than translating unlike rules into one scale. This is evidence about a plant, not permission to plant it in every part of the defensible space; Zone 0 remains noncombustible.

Native and introduced range evidence

These are exact U.S. botanical-area records from the cited range source. Native and introduced describe biogeographic relationship, not fire performance or planting approval. Doubtful and extinct rows stay visible but do not count as current presence.

Current native

36

exact source areas

Current introduced

0

exact source areas

Qualified

0

doubtful or extinct source rows

36 native source areas · World Checklist of Vascular Plants, version 16 v16, as of 2026-06-04
  • Alabama (AL)
  • Arkansas (AR)
  • Connecticut (CT)
  • District of Columbia (DC)
  • Delaware (DE)
  • Florida (FL)
  • Georgia (GA)
  • Iowa (IA)
  • Illinois (IL)
  • Indiana (IN)
  • Kansas (KS)
  • Kentucky (KY)
  • Louisiana (LA)
  • Massachusetts (MA)
  • Maryland (MD)
  • Maine (ME)
  • Michigan (MI)
  • Minnesota (MN)
  • Missouri (MO)
  • Mississippi (MS)
  • North Carolina (NC)
  • Nebraska (NE)
  • New Hampshire (NH)
  • New Jersey (NJ)
  • New York (NY)
  • Ohio (OH)
  • Oklahoma (OK)
  • Pennsylvania (PA)
  • Rhode I. (RI)
  • South Carolina (SC)
  • Tennessee (TN)
  • Texas (TX)
  • Virginia (VA)
  • Vermont (VT)
  • Wisconsin (WI)
  • West Virginia (WV)

The lossless worldwide derivative is retained once in the research corpus; object pages repeat only exact U.S. areas needed by the local lens. The JSON twin carries the same page assertions.

Plant hardiness evidence

These values describe the plant source. Your ZIP zone comes from the separate 2023 USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map. Whole-zone values stay whole-zone, and a single unresolved value is not treated as a tolerance range. Different source boundaries stay separate: overlapping statements are compared independently, while only ranges with no shared zone are called a conflict.

Where its sources say to plant it

Placement rules below use each source's own distances or named zones, tied to its rating. They are not interchangeable with the directory's current Zone 0 guidance.

The evidence

Grouped by what each source concluded. Primary evidence rated the plant itself (a lab, field program, or original curation); corroboration compiled or republished another source's rating and resolves to its root lineage.

Recommends (3)

Same genus in the directory · the Carya group page

Last verified 2026-08-23. JSON (CC BY 4.0)

Profiles: USDA PLANTS · GBIF · iNaturalist · Wikidata · Wikipedia · ITIS

Carya cordiformis (Bitternut hickory). FireApproved. https://fireapproved.com/plants/carya-cordiformis/. Last verified 2026-08-23.