Hi,
Perhaps a stupid and detail question, but in the appendix in Mystery Cults Hickory is enlisted on the form and material list. According to Wikipedia this is an American and East-Asian group of species, so those are probably not the ones refered to in the book. Can anybody give me the scientific name of Hickory?
Thank you, Thijs
Don't have internet access? No, that can't be it, you're posting here ... never heard of Google? 
Genus "Carya"
http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/hort/consumer/factsheets/trees-new/scientific_namesa_e.html
If you already checked Wiki it's written in the article itself. That said, your principal point is valid, this is a type of tree that would not have been found in Medieval Europe.
To quote Monty Python and the Holy Grail: "It could have been carried." 
Well there is the Asian variety.
Would not be common in Medieval Europe, but not impossible to be found. Just very rare and expensive.
Actually, one article I skimmed (in the 45 seconds that it took me to find the Genus answer) mentioned that hickory had been in Europe, but was wiped out during the Ice Age, and not returned.
Of course, perfect historical accuracy rarely stopped a determined SG, and there are other, similar woods that could take on the mantle for purposes of those S&M bonuses (Ignem and "Majesty", it seems.)
The fact that one must go all the way to Mythic Asia to obtain hickory would not necessarily stop a magus (that's the point I was getting at with the Monty Python reference above). Though at that point one is going a bit outside the setting as written. (Could be fun.)
Most likely it's just a mistake; my guess is the authors had reference books on the traditional magical properties of herbs & plants, and they noticed hickory but failed to observe it was indigenous to Asia.
It's not as bad a mistake as referring to Charles Martel as "King," after all... 
[edit] ... or listing Cabal Legacy as a Virtue instead of a Flaw.
Or, perhaps closer, Mythic North America - those crafty Skanderhoopians and all. 
*contemplates the concept of Mythic Canucks
hmmm
Scraelings. Scraelings!
With their mysterious tuques of power, eh! 
LOL> I was thinking more along the lines of mystical Caribou of power, but whatever works for you.
Bah! I was in a ArM4 saga in which the covenant had an adult redwood growing up the center of it which had been shaped into a functioning staircase. The NPC magus who had planted it had claimed he got the seed from some Faeries and he wanted to see how it interacted with the covenants aura.
Of course we also had an expedition transported to the Pacific by the Fae. They were stranded there, forming an entire sub-saga, and had to make their way back on the Argos... no not the original, the one an elderly Odysseus (a Mercurian if ever there was one) built using the figurehead of the original... The sub-saga's unofficial name was "Ars Voyager"
What I'm trying to say is: [size=167]The Faeries did it[/size].
"... mani interesting furry animals
Including the majestic møøse
A Møøse once bit my sister ..."
hmm Mystic Moose, yes it does have a ring to it! 
A horse once bit MY sister.
I've been bitten by a horse.
I wrote said appendix, I believe, so the fault of the foreign hickory tree was mine. I had access to information on the "magical" properties of herbs, as someone speculated, and didn't check to make sure the plants I selected were native to Europe.
My apologies,
Matt Ryan
[Insert here the silent absense of a flamefeast 
]
Matt, you could at least have included the shape and materials bonuses for tobacco, too. CJ just used it to invoke your spirit on the Berklist.
This will go down on your permanent record!
(Yeah, know the terror.) 8)
I'm shocked, horrified and disappointed. This has completely ruined my enjoyment of...
Oh sorry wrong window; hazard of reading two fora at once.
Uh where was I? Oh yeah being shocked horrified and hurt that I had said that the faeries did it and you all fixated on the Møøse instead...
Hmm chocolate møøse.
Uh anyway, hickory. Well I for one have never let the facts get in the way of my opinions... Anyway its evident that none of you heard of the vast hickory forests of Arcadia.
[size=75]Yup that's right, faeries all the way...[/size]
Well you could get Hickory from Arcadia indeed! Just click your heels together three times, spin in place and recite:
"Hickory, Dickory, Doc..."
Sure, why not?