GLEDITSIA TRIACAXTHOS, L. 129 



LEGUMINOS^E. PULSE FAMILY. 



Gleditsia triacanthos, L. 



Honey Locust. Three-thorned Acacia. 



Habitat and Range. In its native habitat growing in a 

 variety of soils ; rich woods, mountain sides, sterile plains. 



Southern Ontario. 



Maine, young trees in the southern sections said to have 

 been produced from self-sown seed (M. L. Fernald) ; Xew 

 Hampshire and Vermont, introduced ; Massachusetts, 

 occasional 5 Rhode Island, introduced and fully at home 

 (J. F. Collins) ; Connecticut, not reported. Probably spar- 

 ingly naturalized in many other places in ]STew England. 



Spreading by seed southward ; indigenous along the western 

 slopes of the Alleghanies in Pennsylvania ; south to Georgia and 

 Alabama ; west from western Xew York through southern Ontario 

 (Canada) and Michigan to Nebraska, Kansas, Indian territory, and 

 Texas. 



Habit. A medium-sized tree, reaching a height of 40-60 

 feet and a trunk diameter of 1-3 feet ; becoming a tree of 

 the first magnitude in the river bottoms of Ohio, Kentucky, 

 and Tennessee ; trunk dark and straight, the upper branches 

 going off at an acute angle, the lower often horizontal, both 

 trunk and larger branches armed above the axils with stout, 

 sharp-pointed, simple, three-pronged or numerously branched 

 thorns, sometimes clustered in forbidding tangles a foot or 

 two in length ; head wide-spreading, very open, rounded or flat- 

 tish, with extremely delicate, fern-like foliage lying in grace- 

 ful planes or masses ; pods flat and pendent, conspicuous in 

 autumn. 



Bark. Trunk and larger branches a sombre iron gray, 

 deepening on old trees almost to black ; yellowish-brown in 

 second year's growth ; season's shoots green, marked with 

 short buff, longitudinal lines ; branchlets rough-dotted. 



Winter Buds and Leaves. Winter buds minute, in clusters of 



