HONEY LOCUST. 



[60] 



Family: LEGUMINOSAE. 



Reproductive system: POLYGAMY, DIOECY. 



The honey locust, Gleditsia tricanthos, Linn., is a tree that grows thirty or 

 forty feet high. The trunk is straight and is covered with a grayish bark. The leaves are 

 winged with no unpaired ones. The leaflets, about eighteen of them, are oblong, dentate, 

 blunt, and a beautiful green. Close to their insertion there are large ligneous reddish 

 thorns, each one equipped with two smaller lateral spines. The flowers are dioecious, 

 greenish, and form lateral catkins. The calyx has three or four sections in three or four 

 parts with four or five stamens in the male flowers. In the hermaphroditic flowers the 

 calyx has three sections. The corolla has four or six petals. The ovary is surmounted with 

 a style, and it turns into a flattened pulpy polyspermous pod. 



FLOWERS: in June and July. 



RANGE: Virginia, Canada, and Louisiana. 



NOMENCLATURE. This genus is named for Gleditsch (Jean Gottlieb), a botanist 

 born in Leipzig and a member of the Berlin academy [Translators note: Jean Gottlieb 

 Gleditsch, 1714-1786, was the director of the Berlin botanical garden]. He originated a 

 classification system based on the positions of the stamens and wrote a manual entitled 

 des Fungus. English, the tree [sic ] t horned acacia. In America it's called honey locust. 



The Chinese honey locust. Gleditsia sinensis, Lam., is a tree distinguished by its 

 long sturdy branching thorns. Each one bears three or four lateral barbs that are always 

 alternate. The leaves are doubly winged with none unpaired. Each branch of the petiole 

 has five or six pairs of smooth blunt elliptical crenate leaflets that are broader than those 

 of other species. 



FLOWERS: in June and July. 



RANGE: China; naturalized in our parks. 



USES. Up until now honey locust trees have been used to 



