MORACE^. 



SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 



89 



TOXYLON POMIFERUM. 



Osage Orange. Bow Wood. 



Toxylon (loxylon) pomiferum, Eafinesque, Am. MonthL 



Mag. and CHt. Rev. ii. 118 (1817). — Greene, Pittoniay 

 ii. 122. — Sudworth, Rep. Sec. Agrlc. 1892, 327. 

 Koehne, Deutsche Dendr. 139. — Coulter, Contrih. U. S. 

 Nat. Hevh. ii. 408 {Man. PL W. Texas). 

 Madura aurantiaca, Nuttall, Gen. ii. 234 (1818) ; Jour. 

 Phil. Acad. vii. pt. i. 52 ; Trans. Am. Phil. Soc. n. ser. v. 

 169 ; Sylva^ i. 126, t. 37, 38. — James, Long's Exped. ii. 



47. 



Loudon, Arb. Brit. iii. 1362, f . 1226-1228. 



Spach, 



Hist. Veg. xi. 53. — Blume, Mua. Bot, Lugd. Bat. ii. 



82. — Miquel, Martins Fl. BrasiL iv. pt. i. 158. — Koch, 

 Dendr. ii. 437. — Bureau, De Candolle Prodr. xvii. 

 227. — Lauche, Deutsche Dendr. 339, f. 130. — Sargent, 



Forest Trees N. Am. 10th Census U. S. ix. 128. 



Wat- 



158. 



Soulange-Bodin, Ann. Soc. Hort. Paris, i. 181. 



Desf ontaines, Cat. Hort. Paris ^ ed. 3, 347. — Seringe, 



son & Coulter, Gi^ay's Man. ed, 6, 464. — Dippel, Handb. 

 Laubholzk. ii. 15. 

 Broussonetia tinctoria, Torrey, Ann. Lye. N. Y. ii. 246 

 (not Kunth) (1828). 



Trans. Soc.d'Agric. Lyons, 1835, 125, t. ; Descr. et Cidt. Toxylon aurantiacum, Rafinesque, Med. Fl. ii. 268 



Mur. 232, t. 27. — Delile, Bidl. Soc. d'Agric. Herault, 



(1830). 



1835, 189, t. — Lambert, Pinus^ ed. 2, ii. Appx. 32, t. Toxylon Madura, Rafinesque, New FL iii. 43 (1836) ; 



12. 



Denson, London Gard. Mag. n. ser. i. 312, f. 45 



Aut. Bot. 149; Am. Man. Mulberry Trees, 13. 



A tree, sometimes fifty to sixty feet in height, with a short trunk two to three feet in diameter, and 

 stout erect ultimately spreading branches which form a handsome rather open irregular round-topped 

 head. The bark of the trunk is two thirds of an inch to an inch in thickness, and is deeply and 

 irregularly divided into broad rounded ridges separating on the surface into thin appressed scales. The 

 branchlets, when they first appear, are light green, often tinged with red, and coated with soft pale 

 pubescence, which soon disappears, and during their first winter they are light brown slightly tinged 



with 



orange-color, later becoming paler. 



The leaves are three to five inches long, two to three 



inches wide, and are borne on petioles an inch and a half to two inches in length ; in the autumn they 

 turn a bright clear yellow before falling. The racemes of staminate flowers with their peduncles are an 

 inch to an inch and a half long, and the heads of pistillate flowers are three quarters of an inch in 

 diameter. The fruit, which is four or five inches in diameter, ripens in the autumn, and soon falls to 

 the ground, where it lies under the trees until it rots or is eaten by horses or cattle. 



Toxylon jpomifermn is distributed from southern Arkansas south of the Arkansas River through 

 the southeastern portions of the Indian Territory, and southward in Texas to about latitude 35° 56^^ 

 north. It is an inhabitant of rich bottom-lands, and appears to be most abundant and to attain its 

 greatest size in the valley of the Red River in the Indian Territory. 



An inhabitant of a region of comparatively limited area, of high winter and summer temperature 

 and of copious rainfall, the Osage Orange, nevertheless, flourishes on the dry soil of the western prairies 

 and in the severe climate of New England ; and during the last forty years it has been more used in 

 the western states for making Hve fences, or hedges, than any other plant.^ Its hardiness and rapid 

 srrowth,^ the toughness of its well-armed branches, and its freedom from disease and insect enemies. 



make it valuable for this purpose, 

 the beauty of the large fruits which in 

 desirable ornaments of parks and garde 



1 McGraw, Rep. Commissioner of Patents, 1854, Agriculture, 



The good habit, the large lustrous and abundant leaves. 



and 



the branches of the pistillate trees, make them 



418. 



S. A. Lindley, Ibid. 1855, 315. —Torrey, Ibid. 1857, 242. 



^ The log specimen of Toxylon in the Jesup Collection of North 

 American Woods in the American Museum of Natural History in 



Warder, Hedges and Evergreens, 35, t. 5, 173, 215. — Porcher, New York, grown in southern Arkansas, is twenty-four inches and 



Resources of Southern Fields and Forests, 101. See also notes on a half in diameter, and shows one hundred and thirty-four layers 



the value of the Osage Orange, with directions for its cultivation of annual growth, 

 as a timber-tree in Forestry Manual of the Kansas State Hort. Soc. 



1881, 10. 



