"They're sort of like tree babies, or maybe tree eggs." Owen Schlimensen's book "The Tree Out My Window" tries to describe these nuts as such in an epic poem. It does not do a good job. Partly because Owen Schlimensen is a horrible writer, and partly because halfway through his first draft a squirrel ate them. "I pondered them greatly as they sat in the vermin's stomach, slowly being digested by a menagerie of acids and biles, I contemplated it's journey through the circle of life. Is it really a circle? Perhaps a oblong round triangle? Only introspection can tell."