Maclura pomifera, commonly known as the Osage orange ( OH-sayj), is a small deciduous tree or large shrub, native to the south-central United States. It is a member of the mulberry family, Moraceae. It typically grows about 8 to 15 m (30–50 ft) tall. The distinctive multiple fruit resembles an immature orange, is roughly spherical, bumpy, 8 to 15 cm (3–6 in) in diameter, and turns bright yellow-green in the fall. The fruit excretes a sticky white latex when cut or damaged. Despite the name "Osage orange", it is not related to the orange. Due to its latex secretions and woody pulp, the fruit is not usually eaten by humans and rarely by foraging animals. Ecologists Daniel H. Janzen and Paul S. Martin proposed in 1982 that the fruit of this species might be an example of what has come to be called an evolutionary anachronism—that is, a fruit coevolved with a large animal seed dispersal partner that is now extinct. This hypothesis is controversial. Maclura pomifera has many common names, including mock orange, horse apple, and hedge apple. The name bois d'arc (French, meaning "bow-wood") has also been corrupted into bodark and bodock.
History The earliest account of the tree in the English language was given by William Dunbar, a Scottish explorer, in his narrative of a journey made in 1804 from St. Catherine's Landing on the Mississippi River to the Ouachita River. Meriwether Lewis sent some slips and cuttings of the curiosity to President Thomas Jefferson in March 1804. According to Lewis's letter, the samples were donated by "Mr. Peter Choteau, who resided the greater portion of his time for many years with the Osage Nation". Those cuttings did not survive. In 1810, Bradbury relates that he found two M. pomifera trees growing in the garden of Pierre Chouteau, one of the first settlers of Saint Louis, apparently the same person. American settlers used the Osage orange (i.e. "hedge apple") as a hedge to exclude free-range livestock from vegetable gardens and corn fields. Under severe pruning, the hedge apple sprouted abundant adventitious shoots from its base; as these shoots grew, they became interwoven and formed a dense, thorny barrier hedge. The thorny Osage orange tree was widely naturalized throughout the United States until this usage was superseded by the invention of barbed wire in 1874. By providing a barrier that was "horse-high, bull-strong, and pig-tight", Osage orange hedges provided the "crucial stop-gap measure for westward expansion until the introduction of barbed wire a few decades later". The trees were named bois d'arc ("bow-wood") by early French settlers who observed the wood being used for war clubs and bow-making by Native Americans. Meriwether Lewis was told that the people of the Osage Nation, "So much ... esteem the wood of this tree for the purpose of making their bows, that they travel many hundreds of miles in quest of it." The trees are also known as "bodark", "bodarc", or "bodock" trees, most likely originating as a corruption of bois d'arc. The Comanche also used this wood for their bows. They liked the wood because it was strong, flexible, and durable, and the bush/tree was common along river bottoms of the Comanchería. Some historians believe that the high value this wood had to Native Americans throughout North America for the making of bows, along with its small natural range, contributed to the great wealth of the Spiroan Mississippian culture that controlled all the land in which these trees grew.
Etymology The genus Maclura is named in honor of William Maclure (1763–1840), a Scottish-born American geologist. The specific epithet pomifera means "fruit-bearing". The common name "Osage" derives from the Osage people, from whom young plants were first obtained, as told in the notes of Meriwether Lewis in 1804.
Description
General habit Mature trees range from 12 to 20 m (40 to 65 ft) tall with short trunks and round-topped canopies. The roots are thick, fleshy, and covered with bright orange bark. The tree's mature bark is dark, deeply furrowed, and scaly. The plant has significant potential to invade unmanaged habitats. The wood of M. pomifera is golden to bright yellow, but fades to medium brown with ultraviolet light exposure. The wood is heavy, hard, strong, and flexible, capable of receiving a fine polish and very durable in contact with the ground. It has a specific gravity of 0.7736 or 773.6 kg/m3 (48.29 lb/cu ft).
Leaves and branches Leaves are arranged alternately in a slender growing shoot 90 to 120 cm (3–4 ft) long. In form they are simple, a long oval terminating in a slender point. The leaves are 8 to 13 cm (3–5 in) long and 5 to 8 cm (2–3 in) wide, and are thick, firm, dark green, shining above, and paler green below when full grown. In autumn they turn bright yellow. The leaf axils contain formidable spines, which when mature, are about 2.5 cm (1 in) long. Branchlets are at first bright green and pubescent; during their first winter, they become light brown tinged with orange, and later they become a paler orange-brown. Branches contain a yellow pith, and are armed with stout, straight, axillary spines. During the winter, the branches bear lateral buds that are depressed-globular, partly immersed in the bark, and pale chestnut brown in color.
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