12 Forest Club Annual 



NOTES ON OSAGE ORANGE 



T. E. MILLER 



The Osage orange, Toxylon pomiferum, occurs naturally 

 on rich soils in Arkansas, Texas and Oklahoma. It is essentially 

 a con-comitant tree frequenting bottom lands which border 

 stream courses. So far as prevalence is concerned, it is a minor 

 species. Its silvicultural range, however, is much broader and 

 more important than its botanical range and extends from the 

 southern part of the United States to the northern parts of 

 Nebraska, Iowa, and Illinois and to the southern part of the 

 New England states. It may be planted westward to the 

 eastern parts of Colorado and Arizona, and may be successfully 

 grown on favorable sites in the extreme southwest. It was 

 early prized by the Indians as being best suited for the con- 

 struction of bows and arrows. This fact has earned for it the 

 common name "bow wood." 



Osage orange is a tree which sometimes attains a height 

 of sixty or seventy feet and occasionally a diameter of two or 

 three feet. This size, however, is rarely attained outside of its 

 natural range, although planted trees have been reported over 

 18 inches in diameter and 35 feet in height. Many of the prin- 

 cipal lateral branches are characterized by broadly convex out- 

 ward curves some of which occur in series. From the upper side 

 of these curves there arise an exceptionally large proportion of 

 vertical vigorous growing branchlets. This gives- the tree a 

 distinctive erect crown which is often scraggly. The bark on the 

 trunk is ridged and stringy and varies from one-half to one inch 

 in thickness. The branchlets, when they first appear are light 

 green, often tinged with red and coated with soft pale pubescence, 

 which soon disappears. During their first winter, they are light 

 brown, slightly tinged with orange color, later becoming paler. 

 The root system is distinctly fibrous or lateral. The roots are 

 long, slender and covered by a tough, scaly orange yellow bark. 



The fruit of the Osage is fleshy and varies from 3 to 4 

 inches in diameter. A count as to the number of seeds per 

 fruit showed the wide variation of from 195 to 611 with an aver- 

 age of 357. The number of seed per pound was likewise extreme- 

 ly variable, and frequently the smallest seeds are about one-half 

 the size of the largest seeds. A single count of average seed 

 showed 11,324 to the pound. 



When the white race settled the Middle West and intro- 

 duced the wire fence, this tree was found to produce posts, 

 both exceedingly strong and durable. It was also found to 



