THREE-THORNED GLEDITSCHIA. 213 
green. They appear rather late in spring, and begin to turn yellow, and drop 
off early in autumn. The flowers, which open in June, are small and rather 
inconspicuous, the male being in the form of catkin-like racemes, of nearly the 
same colour of the leaves. The fruit is in the form of flat, crooked, pendulous 
pods, from twelve to eighteen inches in length, of a reddish-brown colour. They 
contain numerous hard, smooth, brown seeds, enveloped in a pulpy substance, 
which, for about a month after maturity, is very sweet, but which, in a few 
weeks after, becomes extremely sour. The pods often remain upon the trees 
some time after the leaves have fallen. The seeds usually ripen in the United 
States towards the end of September. 
Varieties. The varieties recognized under this species are as follows : 
1. G. t. inermis, De Candolle. Spineless Honey Locust, the stem and branches 
of which are either entirely without spines, or sparingly so. There is a tree of 
this variety at Syon, near London, seventy-two feet in height, with a trunk 
nearly two and a half feet in diameter, and an ambitus of seventy-one feet. 
2. G. t. brachycarpos, Michaux. Short- fruited Honey Locust, with short 
spines, and oblong pods, much shorter than those of the species. 
Geography and History. The Gleditschia triacanthos is sparingly found in 
me United States, from Pennsylvania to Georgia and Louisiana. It seems to 
belong more particularly to the country west of the Alleghanies; and it is 
scarcely found growing wild anywhere except in the fertile bottoms which are 
watered by the rivers that empty themselves into the Mississippi, and Illinois, 
especially in the southern parts of Kentucky and Tennessee. It is generally 
associated with the Juglans nigra, Carya squamosa, Ulmus rubra, Fraxinus 
americana quadrangulata, Robinia pseudacacia, Negundo fraxinifolium, and 
Gymnocladus canadensis. It is cultivated for ornament in the Atlantic cities 
and towns, from Schenectady, in New York, to Savannah, in Georgia. 
This species was first cultivated in Britain in 1700, by Bishop Compton, in 
the palace garden, at Fulham; and Miller informs us that it produced pods there 
of full size, in 1728; but the seeds did not come to maturity. 
The largest Gleditschia triacanthos in England, is at Syon, near London, 
which is fiftynseven feet in height, with a trunk three feet in diameter, and an 
ambitus of sixty-three feet. 
In Renfrewshire, in Scotland, in the Glasgow botanic garden, there is another 
tree, planted against a wall, which is generally killed down to the ground every 
year ; but in Haddingtonshire, at Tyningham, there is a tree which attained a 
height of nearly forty feet, in twenty years after planting. 
This species was known in France in the time of Du Hamel, who recommends 
ii as an ornamental tree, but liable to have its branches broken by the wind, 
more especially when the trunk divides into two branches of equal size, and 
becomes forked at the summit. It ripens its seeds freely in France, as well as in 
southern Europe generally, from which plants are easily raised. 
The largest Gleditschia triacanthos growing in France, is in the Jardin des 
Plantes, at Paris, which attained the height of eighty feet in one hundred years 
after planting, with a trunk two feet in diameter. 
In Italy, at Monza, this species attained the height of thirty feet in twenty- 
nine years after planting. It was used also in Lombardy for hedges, but, like 
the common locust, when tried for the same purpose, was soon abandoned. 
In Prussia, at Sans Souci, this tree attained a height of fifty feet in forty-five 
years after planting. 
In Russia, in the Crimea, it ripened seeds, in 1827, from which young plants 
were raised. 
Soil, Situation, Propagation, fyc. The Gleditschia triacanthos, in its natural 
habitat, is never found except where the soil is good, and its presence, Michaux 
