Handbook of Trees of the !N"orthebn States and Canada 



280 



The Honey Locust attains the height of from 

 75 to 140 ft. when fjrowing in tlie forests, and 

 when isolated develops a broad rounded or 

 lofty Hat-topped head with drooping lateral 

 branches and of very characteristic aspect. Its 

 trunk, commonly 2 or 3 ft. in diameter, excep- 

 tionally 5 or ft., is vested in a dark gray 

 bark witli closely appressed firm scales. It 

 usually bears a rigid sharp 1-3-pointed glossy 

 purple-brown thorn above tlie axil of each leaf. 

 and the trunk and bases of the large branches 

 often bristle with very formidable branching 

 thorns, but trees are occasionally met with in 

 which the thorns are nearly or entirely absent. 

 It inhabits chiefly moist bottom-lands in com- 

 pany with various Oaks and Hickories, the 

 Black Walnut, Hackberry, Buckeye, etc.. and 

 although growing naturally only west of the 

 Alleghanies and in the Mississippi valley h:i3 

 become widely naturalized outside of its origi- 

 nal range. It is extensively planted for orna- 

 mental purposes, hedges, etc. From its incon- 

 spicuous flowers the bees gather much honey. 



Its wood is heavy, a cu. ft. when absolutely 



dry weighing 42 lbs., strong and very durable 



and is used for railway-ties, posts and in the 



manufacture of agricultural implements. 2 



Leaves 7-10 in. long with 7-10 pairs of leaflets 

 or 4-8 pairs of pinna' with piiliescent petioles and 

 rachises. the leaflets short-stalkod. oblons-lance- 

 olate, inequilatoral at liase. obfiiso or rounded at 

 each end. crennlatc. lustrous dark irrccu above. 

 paler and often pubescent on the uiidiibs bcnoatli. 

 Floirrrx (June) from axils of the leaves of tlie 

 previous season, green and rich in honey, the 

 staminate in dense and sometimes clustered race- 

 mes, the pistillate in few-flowered and usually 

 solitary racemes. Fruit pods, linear, 10-18 iii. 

 long, shining dark brown and usually contorted 

 and twisted in short racemes and containing 

 numerous hard oval compressed seeds separated by 

 a sweetish succulent pnln " 



1. Sometimes spelled Glcditschia. 



2. A. W., II, 28. 



8. For genus see p. 412. 



