392 DECIDUOUS TREES. 



but its habit of growth is so straggling and tortuous that it needs 

 much care to keep it in a form suitable in polished grounds. It is 

 recommended to have a single stem tied to a strong cedar post six 

 or eight feet high (which should be permanent), with a wire parasol- 

 like frame fixed to the top to support the branches and allow them 

 to fall on all sides from it. Thus trained there is no more exquisite 

 flowering-shrub. The post alone will, if care is taken to keep the 

 stem tied to it so as not to injure the bark, be sufficient to keep 

 the tree in good shape. 



THE THREE-THORNED ACACIA OR HONEY LOCUST. Gleditschia. 

 A large and curious native of our forests, armed at all points with 

 enormous compound thorns which grow even through the old bark 

 of the trunk as well as on the branches, and arm all parts of the 

 tree in the most formidable manner. Downing gives the tree high 

 rank for ornamental purposes. We have seen much of it, in favor- 

 able circumstances, and although it exceeds the Robinias in the 

 flaky lightness of its foliage, and in picturesqueness of outline, it 

 is inferior to them in every other respect, and is a desirable tree 

 only for the merits just named, which make it suitable as a pictur- 

 esque condiment among trees of heavy outlines. Like the beech, 

 though its branches form angles of about 45 with the main stem 

 when the tree is young, the exterior foliage is disposed in horizontal 

 strata, recalling by their appearance pictures of old cedars of 

 Lebanon. Old trees especially, with their tabular tops, are re- 

 markable for this appearance. The thorns of the honey locust 

 which occasionally die out and drop off, are dangerous, as they lie 

 concealed in the grass, to the feet of those who walk under them ; 

 and this fact is an objection to the tree where there are children. 

 In blossom the tree is less showy than the common locusts. The 

 seed pods which succeed the blossoms are from five to nine inches 

 long ; and though the seeds ripen early in autumn, the pods them- 

 selves remain dry and hard upon the tree through the winter, and 

 sometimes for more than a year, and are unsightly. 



There are some Chinese species or varieties, G. smensis, whose 

 characteristics are not sufficiently known to describe. Loudon 

 mentions the G. s. purpurea as " a small tree of compact upright 



