LEGUMINOSA—PEA FAMILY 
LOCUST. ACACIA, YELLOW LOCUST. BLACK 
LOCUST 
Robinia pseudacdcia, 
Robinia commemorates the botanical labors of Jean Robin, her- 
balist of Henry III. and director of the gardens of the Louvre 
under Henry IV. and Louis XIII. His son Vespasian Robin 
first cultivated the Locust tree in Europe. Psezdacacia, like 
the acacia. 
Often cultivated as an ornamental tree throughout the north, but 
native from Pennsylvania to northern Georgia and westward as far 
as Arkansas and Indian Territory. Reaches the height of seventy 
feet with a trunk three or four feet in diameter, with brittle branches 
that form an oblong narrow head. Spreads by underground shoots. 
Bark.—Dark gray brown tinged with red, deeply furrowed, sur- 
face inclined to scale. Branchlets at first coated with white silvery 
down. This soon disappears and they become pale green, afterward 
reddish brown. Prickles develop from stipules, are short, some- 
what triangular, dilated at base, sharp, dark purple, adhering only 
to the bark, but persistent. 
Wood.—Pale yellowish brown; heavy, hard, strong, close-grained 
and very durable in contact with the ground. Sp. gr., 0.7333 ; weight 
of cv. ft., 45.70 lbs. 
Winter Buds.—Minute, naked, three or four together, protected 
in a depression by a scale-like covering lined on the inner surface 
with a thick coat of tomentum and opening in early spring ; when 
forming are covered by the swollen base of the petiole. 
Leaves.—Alternate, compound, odd-pinnate, eight to fourteen 
inches long, with slender hairy petioles, grooved and swollen at the 
base. Leaflets petiolate, seven to nine, one to two inches long, one- 
half to three-fourths of an inch broad. emarginate or rounded at 
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