NUTS about a nut - that's pensioner Ray Pratt.

Ray, 71, became nut-crazy after coming across a rare three-segmented walnut five Christmases ago and has been obsessed with finding out about it ever since.

Roy Vickery, curator of flowering plants at the Natural History Museum, has never seen a three-segmented walnut, but said it was exceptionally rare.

"The study of such things is very unfashionable at the moment," he said.

"In the 1870s and '80s people were very interested in freaks like that. Since then there has been less interest. It is not something which is studied or recorded a great deal."

The walnut differs from conventional ones which have two segments holding two double lobes.

Ray said: "I go to the supermarket and rummage through the loose walnuts.

"I usually stand there looking at them while my wife goes round the rest of the supermarket.

"I don't eat that many but I've been fascinated since finding this one and would like to find another one. But I'm fed up with it really."

Ray, a former aviation engineer, had written an article in the Caravan Club magazine asking members to shed light on it. He is now turning to Gazette readers to solve his nut riddle.

He wants to know if it is rare, whether there is a tree which produces three-segmented walnuts only, what the inside structure would look like and if it is worth anything.

Those interested can write to Ray at 1 Beverley Close, Basingstoke, RG22 4BT.