Silicon carbide nanorods and carbon nanotubes are grown simultaneously on Ni-coated Si(001) substrates by chemical vapor deposition. The nanorods have a non-uniform diameter (average approximate to 100 nm) significantly larger than that of the nanotubes (<30 nm). Tips of the nanorods are decorated with catalyst particles. Both these features indicate that the SiC nanorods are not obtained through the chemical conversion of nanotubes. We demonstrate that the relative amounts of nanorods and nanotubes can be controlled by adjusting the Ni film thickness. Variants of our approach are potentially useful for creating hybrid architectures of high-aspect ratio nanostructures in one growth step. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.