DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 155 



our gardens from a village of the Osage tribe of Indians, 

 whence the common name of the tree. 



The wood is fine grained, yellow in colour, and takes a 

 brilliant polish. It is also very strong and eleistic, and on 

 this account, the Indians of the wide district to which this 

 tree is indigenous, employ it extensively for bows, greatly 

 preferring it to any other timber. Hence its common name, 

 among the white inhabitants, is Bodac. a corruption of the 

 term hois d'arc, [how-wood,) of the French settlers. A fine 

 yellow dye is extracted from the wood, similar to that of the 

 Fustic. 



As the Osage orange belongs to the monoecious class of 

 plants, it does not perfect its fruit, unless both the male 

 £ind female trees are growing in the same neighbourhood. 

 Many have believed the fruit to be eatable, both from its fine 

 appearance, and from its affinity with, and resemblance to 

 that of the bread-fruit ; but all attempts to render it pleasant, 

 either cooked or in a raw state, have hitherto failed : it is 

 therefore probably inedible, though not injurious. Perhaps 

 when fully ripened, some mode of preparing it by baking or 

 otherwise, may render it palatable. 



As an ornamental tree, the Osage orange is rather too 

 loose in the disposition of its wade-spreading branches, to be 

 called beautiful in its form. But the bright glossy hue of its 

 foliage, and especially the unique appearance of a good 

 sized tree when covered with the large orange-like fruit, ren- 

 der it one of the most interesting of our native trees ; while 

 it has the same charm of rarity as an exotic, since it was in- 

 troduced from the far west, and is yet but little planted in 

 the United States. On a small lawn, where but iev^ trees 

 are needed, and where it is desirable that the species employed, 

 should all be as distinct as possible, to give the whole as much 



