516 



^"EW EXGLAXD TI^EES IX WIXTER. 



HONEY LOCUST 



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



Tree. 



Gleditsia triacanthus L. (Sometimes called Gleditschia.) 



HABIT — A medium sized tree 40-GO ft. in heig-ht with a trunk diameter 

 of l-o ft.; trunk cummonly short dividing into a number of slightly 

 spreading limbs, with soniewliat drooping lateral branches, forming 

 a broad rounded ubo\'ate 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 branch lets 

 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. 



TAVIGS — Slender, shining, smooth, reddish to greenish-brown, often 

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

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

 stem, generally present above n'_>de. LEXTICELS — minute, scattered, 

 becoming conspicuous bru^vn raised dots on older growth. PITH — • 

 thick, whitish. 



LEAF-SCARS — Alternate, generally more than 2-ranked. V-shaped 

 with upper margins and apex generally swollen. STIPULE- SCARS 

 - — absent or inconspicuous. BL'XDLE-SCARS — 3, rather inconspicuous. 



Bl'DS — Terminal bud absent, the lateral buds small, generally about 

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

 decreasing in size from above down ■ward, 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 uf more or less rudimentary branches. 



FRllT — A long, flat, reddish-brrl^^■n. more or less twisted, indehlscent 

 pod 10 to IS inrhes long, containing numerous flat oval seeds about 

 10 mm. long. The photograpli of the fruit is reduced to about I3 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. 



niSTRinUTIOX — in its native habitat growing In a variety of soils; 

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

 by seed southward; indigenous along the -^'estern slopes of the Al- 

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

 "v\-estern Xew York through southern Ontario and Michigan to Xebraska, 

 Kansas, Indian Territory, and Texas. 



IX XEW EXGLAXD — Xot native, but frequently planted as an orna- 

 mental tree or f':tr hedges and escaped from cultivation; Maine — \'oung 

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

 sown seed; Xew Hampshire and A^ermont — introduced: Massachusetts — 

 occasional; Rhode Island — introduced and fully at home. Probably 

 sparingly naturalized in many other places in Xew England. 



IN COXXECTICUT— Rare, occasional or local. 



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

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

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

 of wheels and in construction. 



