198 TREE ANCESTORS 



States; and the true honey locust, Glcditsia triacanthos Linnaeus, 

 a tall graceful tree, ranges from Ontario and western New York 

 to Georgia, Kansas and Texas. 



The honey locust is a large tree 75 to 140 feet in height and with 

 a trunk 2 or 3 and occasionally as much as 6 feet in diameter. It is 

 exceedingly graceful in habit with its slender spreading and some- 

 what pendulous branches forming a broad open head. This 

 together with its tiny leaflets gives it more the appearance of so 

 many of the tropical species of Leguminosae rather than of a tree 

 of the Temperate Zone, and it is consequently a general favorite 

 as an ornamental and shade tree in all countries with a suitable 

 cKmate. 



The leaves are sometimes slender stalks with 9 to 14 pairs of 

 oblong-ovate leaflets which are never over Ij inches long and \ 

 inch wide, and which usually have a slightly, but not apparent, 

 crenulate margin. More usually the leafstalk bears from 4 to 7 

 pairs of branches each with 8 to 12 pairs of leaflets, which are 

 generally under an inch in length and ^ inch in width. Such leaves 

 in which there is on odd terminal unpaired leaflet on the main 

 stalk or the branches is termed even pinnate. Sometimes, however, 

 the honey locust leaves do have such an odd terminal leaflet, and 

 frequently either the basal or the terminal part of the leaf stalk 

 will lack subordinate leaflet bearing branches and have in their 

 place somewhat larger leaflets on the main stalk with the leaflet 

 bearing branches in the middle part of the leaf stalk. The stipules 

 are small and are soon shed and do not develop into spines as in 

 the black locust. Nevertheless the honey locust is plentifully 

 supplied with thorns. These are large and much branched and 

 are not superficial (epidermal) like the spines of the black locust 

 but are true abortive branches and cannot be readily detached 

 except by cutting. 



The flowers appear in the late spring after the leaves. They 

 are not especially conspicuous being greenish-white in color, but 

 are exceedingly fragrant and abundantly nectar-bearing. They 

 are not irregular like a pea blossom as are those of the black locust, 

 but regular and polygamous, i.e., some are pollen-bearing and some 



