516 NEW ENGLAND TREES IN WINTER. 



HONEY LOCUST 



Three-thorned Acacia, Honey Shucks, Sweet Locust, Thorn 



Tree. 



Gleditsia triacanthus L. (Sometimes called Gleditschia.) 



HABIT A medium sized tree 40-60 ft. in height with a trunk diameter 

 of 1-3 ft.; trunk commonly short dividing into a number of slightly 

 spreading limbs, with somewhat drooping lateral branches, forming 

 a broad rounded obovate or flat-topped head. Seen against the sky 

 the smaller branches appear zigzag with characteristic swellings at 

 the nodes often surmounted with thorns and rudimentary branchlets 

 developed from the extra buds. (See branches at side of trunk in 

 bark picture). 



BARK Grayish-brown darkening with age, on young trunks and 

 branches smooth, on older trunks more or less roughened into broad 

 ridges with firm persistent recurved edges. Some trunks have bark 

 practically smooth except for a few deep fissures; some trunks are 

 thickly fringed with dense masses of long branched spines, while others 

 are free from them. 



TWIGS Slender, shining, smooth, reddish to greenish-brown, often 

 light mottled or streaked, zigzag with enlarged nodes; a large branched 

 thorn with pale reddish-brown pith, discontinuous with that of the 

 stem, generally present above node. LENTICELS minute, scattered, 

 becoming conspicuous brown raised dots on older growth. PITH 

 thick, whitish. 



LEAP-SCARS Alternate, generally more than 2-ranked, V-shaped 

 with upper margins and apex generally swollen. STIPULE-SCARS 

 absent or inconspicuous. BUNDLE-SCARS 3, rather inconspicuous. 



BUDS Terminal bud absent, the lateral buds small, generally about 

 5 more or less distinct at a node, separated one above the other, 

 decreasing in size from above downward, the uppermost a superposed 

 smooth scaly bud breaking through the bark, the next also scaly 

 covered by or breaking through the leaf-scar, the lower buds without 

 scales, covered by bark and seen as minute green dots in a longitudinal 

 section of twig; buds often continue to be produced at the nodes for 

 several years especially when the twigs are trimmed as in hedges and 

 give rise to a bunch of more or less rudimentary branches. 



FRUIT A long, flat, reddish-brown, more or less twisted, indehiscent 

 pod 10 to 18 inches long, containing numerous flat oval seeds about 

 10 mm. long. The photograph of the fruit is reduced to about % nat- 

 ural size. 



COMPARISONS The Honey Locust is at once distinguished from the 

 various other thorny species such as the Hawthorn and Common Locust 

 by its large branched thorns situated above the leaf-scar. When the 

 thorns are absent as is sometimes the case the vertical row of separated 

 smooth buds, the upper scaly and superposed, the lower hidden by the 

 bark, are sufficient points of distinction. 



DISTRIBUTION In its native habitat growing in a variety of soils; 

 rich woods, mountain sides, sterile plains. Southern Ontario; spreading 

 by seed southward; indigenous along the western slopes of the Al- 

 leghanies in Pennsylvania; south to Georgia and Alabama; west from 

 western New York through southern Ontario and Michigan to Nebraska, 

 Kansas, Indian Territory, and Texas. 



IN NEW ENGLAND Not native, but frequently planted as an orna- 

 mental tree or for hedges and escaped from cultivation; Maine young 

 trees in the southern sections said to have been produced from self- 

 sown seed; New Hampshire and Vermont introduced; Massachusetts 

 occasional; Rhode Island introduced and fully at home. Probably 

 sparingly naturalized in many other places in New England. 



IN CONNECTICUT Rare, occasional or local. 



WOOD Hard, strong, coarse-grained, very durable in contact with 

 soils, red or bright red-brown, with thin, pale sapwood of 10-12 layers 

 of annual growth; largely used for fence posts and rails, for the hubs 

 of wheels and in construction. 



