THE COMMON LOCUST OR ACACIA 



A LTHOUGH originally native to a comparatively small area along the sides of the 

 l-\ Alleghany Mountains in Pennsylvania and Georgia, the Common Locust is now 

 ^- -*- probably the best known and most generally distributed arborescent form of 

 the great family of plants having leguminous fruits. For very many years it has been 

 widely planted as a shade tree, and in most instances it has spread by means of under- 

 ground stems, so that the original tree is often represented by thickets or groves of large 

 or small trees that occupy considerable areas. 



There are many characteristics that distinguish the Common Locust. In winter 

 the peculiar paired spines with the bud hidden between them in the midst of the broad, 

 rounded leaf-scar, serve at once to identify the branches. In spring and throughout the 

 summer the beautiful pinnately compound leaves, having a central terminal leaflet, are 

 sufficiently distinctive and with the habit of growth of the tree serve to give an impression 

 of grace and strength that is very pleasing. In early summer the beautiful racemes of 

 fragrant white flowers attract universal attention from the world of insects, as well as 

 from that of man, while after the leaves have fallen in autumn the hundreds of clustered 

 pods give a distinctive character to the tree as far as it can be seen. The bark of the trunk 

 is dark brown, often with a slightly reddish tinge, more or less vertically furrowed and 

 sometimes largely covered with squarish scales. 



This Locust is more subject to attack by insects than almost any other tree which 

 is commonly planted for ornamental purposes. The trunk serves as the breeding-place 

 of the beautiful beetle called the locust-borer, while the leaves serve a similar purpose 

 for several species of leaf -miners and other leaf-eating insects. As a result the trees seldom 

 flourish as they ought to do and are very likely to be disfigured and unsightly. This fact 

 seriously interferes with their value in landscape gardening, and naturally is leading to 

 the substitution of other species. In Europe there are a number of horticultural forms 

 which are propagated by grafting that appear to be quite generally used in landscape 

 planting. The type form is easily propagated by means of seeds. 



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