Hickory hickory and woods that are harder, but the combination of strength, toughness, hardness, and stiffness found in hickory wood is not found in any other commercial wood. It is used for tool handles, bows, wheel spokes, carts, drumsticks, lacrosse stick handles, golf club shafts (sometimes still called "hickory stick", even though made of steel or graphite), the bottom of skis, walking sticks, and for punitive use as a switch (like hazel), and especially as a cane-like hickory stick in schools and use by parents. Paddles are often made from hickory. This property of hickory wood has left a trace in
Exocarpos cupressiformis make spearthrowers as well as bull roarers. The pale wood is very fine-grained with little figure but often striking colour variation. The timber was historically used for making furniture, gun-stocks, and tool handles. It is also suitable for carving and turning and so is also now used for producing decorative and ornamental pieces of art-work in the Arts and Crafts industries. The fleshy pedicel, the "cherry", is edible and so was used as food by indigenous Australians and by early European settlers. The "fruit" is picked when it is so ripe it is ready to fall from the tree. It