182 
LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 
Lewis and Clarke’s Expedition. It was named by them 
in honor of the late Wm. Maclure, Esq., President of the 
American Academy of Natural Sciences. 
The wood is fine grained, yellow in color, and takes 
a brilliant polish. It is also very strong and elastic, and on 
this account the Indians of the wide district to which 
this tree is indigenous, employ it extensively for bows, 
greatly preferring it to any other timber. Hence its com- 
mon name among the white inhabitants is Bodac, a cor 
ruption of the term bois d’ arc (bow-wood), of the French 
settlers. A fine yellow dye is extracted from the wood, 
similar to that of the Fustic. 
As the Osage orange belongs to the monoecious class of 
plants, it does not perfect its fruit unless both the male and 
female trees are growing in the same neighborhood. 
Many have believed the fruit to be eatable, both from its 
fine appearance, and from its affinity with and resemblance 
to that of the bread-fruit ; but all attempts to render it 
pleasant, either cooked or in a raw state, have hitherto 
failed : it is therefore probably inedible, though not injuri- 
ous. Perhaps when fully ripened, some mode of preparing 
it by baking or otherwise, may render it palatable. 
As an ornamental tree, the Osage orange is rather too 
loose in the disposition of its wide-spreading branches, to be 
called beautiful in its form. But the bright glossy hue of 
its foliage, and especially the unique appearance of a good 
sized tree when covered with the large, orange-like fruit, 
render it one of the most interesting of our native trees ; 
while it has the same charm of rarity as an exotic, siqce it 
was introduced from the far west, and is yet but little 
planted in the United States. On a small lawn, where but 
few trees are needed, and where it is desirable that the 
