Possible Clues:

• Type of muscle associated with a Northern nut
• Nut whose name has different regional pronunciations
• Fungus is back on an American tree
• Able to follow exercise nut
• Popular pie ingredient
• Quietly get the cane out, of hickory
• Georgia nut
• Nutcracker's target, sometimes
• Writer's taken in about nut-tree
• That hidden cape over the North is enough to make one nutty