74 SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 
although coarse-grained timber. 
becomes bitter and astringent. 
LEGUMINOS£. 
The pulp which surrounds the seeds has a sweet taste when fresh, but 
Beer has been made in the United States by fermenting the fresh pods 
of Gleditsia triacanthos,’ and in Japan the pods of Gleditsia Japonica were formerly employed as 
soap, and once formed an article of some commercial importance.” 
The American species are not seriously injured by insects,’ and are subject to few fungal diseases.‘ 
The generic name commemorates the scientific labors of Johann Gottleb Gleditsch,’ a contem- 
porary and friend of Linnzus, and professor of botany at Berlin. 
1 Porcher, Resources of Southern Fields and Forests, 195. 
2 Rein, Japan nach Reisen und Studien im Auftrage der Kéniglich 
Preussischen Regierung, ii. 298. 
8 The Honey Locusts are less injured by insects than Robinia, 
although a borer, Eburia quadrigeminata, Say, is said to live in 
their trunks. Web-worms and some other general leaf-eating 
insects occur on them, and the leaves are sometimes mined by the 
larve of small moths. The larve of Pempelia gleditschiella, Fernald, 
are described as drawing the leaves together and feeding on them 
(Rep. Dept. Agric. 1880, 262). In some parts of the country they 
are injured by the maggots of Cecidomyia gleditschice, Osten Sacken, 
which distort the young leaflets and prevent their development 
(Proc. Entomol. Soc. Phil. vi. 219). 
‘ The leaves of Gleditsia are sometimes injured in the United 
States by Leptostroma hypophyllum, Berk. & Rav., which appears in 
the form of small black spots, and by the mildew Microspheria 
Ravenelii, Berk., which produces velvety olive-colored patches on 
the leaves. Of the fungi which attack the stems the most impor- 
tant are Botryospheria Gleditschie, Sace., Spheropsis Gleditschia, 
Cooke, and Spheropsis mamillaris, B. & C., but they are not known 
to cause serious injury. 
5 Johann Gottlieb Gleditsch (1714-1786), a native of Leipsic, 
was appointed in 1771 to the chair of botany in the University of 
Berlin, which he occupied during the remainder of his life. He 
wrote numerous botanical treatises and one of the earliest works 
on scientific forestry, his chief merit as an author being the appli- 
cation of botanical methods to rural science. 
CONSPECTUS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN SPECIES. 
Legume linear-oblong, elongated, many-seeded, pulpy, indehiscent; leaflets lanceolate-oblong. 1. G. TRIACANTHOS. 
Legume oval, oblique, one or two-seeded, without pulp, tardily dehiscent; leaflets ovate, 
oblique . 
2. G. AQUATICA. 
° e 
