Maclura pomifera

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

"Bois d'arc" redirects here. For other uses, see Bois d'arc (disambiguation).

Osage orange
Foliage and multiple fruit

Least Concern  (IUCN 3.1)[1]

Secure  (NatureServe)[2]
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Eudicots
Clade: Rosids
Order: Rosales
Family: Moraceae
Genus: Maclura
Species:
M. pomifera
Binomial name
Maclura pomifera
(Raf.) Schneid.
Synonyms[3][4]
  • Ioxylon pomiferum Raf.
  • Joxylon pomiferum Raf.
  • Maclura aurantiaca Nutt.
  • Maclura pomifera var. inermis C.K.Schneid.
  • Toxylon aurantiacum (Nutt.) Raf.
  • Toxylon maclura Raf.
  • Toxylon pomiferum Raf.

Maclura pomifera, commonly known as the Osage orange (

mulberry family, Moraceae.[8] Due to its latex secretions and woody pulp, the fruit is typically not eaten by humans and rarely by foraging animals. Ecologists Daniel H. Janzen and Paul S. Martin proposed in 1982 that the fruit of this species might be an example of what has come to be called an evolutionary anachronism—that is, a fruit coevolved with a large animal seed dispersal partner that is now extinct. This hypothesis is controversial.[9][10]

Maclura pomifera has many names, including mock orange, hedge apple, hedge, horse apple, pap, monkey ball, monkey brains and yellow-wood. The name bois d'arc (from French meaning "bow-wood") has also been corrupted into bodark and bodock.[11][12][13]

History

The earliest account of the tree in the English language was given by

Saint Louis.) Those cuttings did not survive. In 1810, Bradbury relates that he found two Maclura pomifera trees growing in the garden of Pierre Chouteau, one of the first settlers of Saint Louis, apparently the same person.[14]

American settlers used the Osage orange (i.e. "hedge apple") as a hedge to exclude free-range livestock from vegetable gardens and corn fields. Under severe pruning, the hedge apple sprouted abundant adventitious shoots from its base; as these shoots grew, they became interwoven and formed a dense, thorny barrier hedge. The thorny Osage orange tree was widely naturalized throughout the United States until this usage was superseded by the invention of barbed wire in 1874.[15][6][16][17] By providing a barrier that was "horse-high, bull-strong, and pig-tight", Osage orange hedges provided the "crucial stop-gap measure for westward expansion until the introduction of barbed wire a few decades later".[18]

The trees were named bois d'arc ("bow-wood")[6] by early French settlers who observed the wood being used for war clubs and bow-making by Native Americans.[14] Meriwether Lewis was told that the people of the Osage Nation, "So much ... esteem the wood of this tree for the purpose of making their bows, that they travel many hundreds of miles in quest of it."[19] The trees are also known as "bodark", "bodarc", or "bodock" trees, most likely originating as a corruption of bois d'arc.[6]

The

Comanchería. Some historians believe that the high value this wood had to Native Americans throughout North America for the making of bows, along with its small natural range, contributed to the great wealth of the Spiroan Mississippian culture that controlled all the land in which these trees grew.[21]

Etymology

The genus Maclura is named in honor of William Maclure[13] (1763–1840), a Scottish-born American geologist. The specific epithet pomifera means "fruit-bearing".[13] The common name Osage derives from Osage Native Americans from whom young plants were first obtained, as told in the notes of Meriwether Lewis in 1804.[17]

Description

General habit

Mature trees range from 12 to 20 metres (40–65 ft) tall with short trunks and round-topped canopies.[6] The roots are thick, fleshy, and covered with bright orange bark. The tree's mature bark is dark, deeply furrowed and scaly. The plant has significant potential to invade unmanaged habitats.[6]

The wood of M. pomifera is golden to bright yellow but fades to medium brown with ultraviolet light exposure.

specific gravity
of 0.7736 or 773.6 kg/m3 (48.29 lb/cu ft).

Leaves and branches

Leaves are

leaf axils
contain formidable spines which when mature are about 2.5 centimetres (1 in) long.

Branchlets are at first bright green and pubescent; during their first winter they become light brown tinged with orange, and later they become a paler orange brown. Branches contain a yellow pith, and are armed with stout, straight, axillary spines. During the winter, the branches bear lateral buds that are depressed-globular, partly immersed in the bark, and pale chestnut brown in color.

Flowers and fruit

As a

staminate (male) flowers are found on different trees. Staminate flowers are pale green, small, and arranged in racemes borne on long, slender, drooping peduncles developed from the axils of crowded leaves on the spur-like branchlets of the previous year. They feature a hairy, four-lobed calyx; the four stamens are inserted opposite the lobes of calyx, on the margin of a thin disk. Pistillate flowers are borne in a dense spherical many-flowered head which appears on a short stout peduncle from the axils of the current year's growth. Each flower has a hairy four-lobed calyx with thick, concave lobes that invest the ovary and enclose the fruit. Ovaries are superior, ovate, compressed, green, and crowned by a long slender style covered with white stigmatic hairs. The ovule
is solitary.

The mature multiple fruit's size and general appearance resembles a large, yellow-green

carpels (ovaries) have grown together; thus, it is classified a multiple-accessory fruit. Each small drupe is oblong, compressed and rounded; they contain a milky latex which oozes when the fruit is damaged or cut.[23] The seeds are oblong. Although the flowering is dioecious, the pistillate tree when isolated will still bear large oranges, perfect to the sight but lacking the seeds.[14] The fruit has a cucumber-like flavor.[23]

  • Mature tree
    Mature tree
  • Mature bark
    Mature bark
  • Leaves
    Leaves
  • Female inflorescence
    Female inflorescence
  • Mature multiple fruit
    Mature multiple fruit
  • Multiple fruit, sliced
    Multiple fruit, sliced
  • Fruit burrowed into by seed eating animal
    Fruit burrowed into by seed eating animal
  • Maclura pomifera fruits on ground
    Maclura pomifera fruits on ground
  • Maclura pomifera tree with fruits on ground
    Maclura pomifera tree with fruits on ground

Distribution

Natural range of M. pomifera in pre-Columbian era America.

Osage orange's pre-Columbian range was largely restricted to a small area in what is now the United States, namely the

Blackland Prairies and post oak savannas.[6] A disjunct population also occurred in the Chisos Mountains of Texas.[24] It has since become widely naturalized in the United States and Ontario, Canada.[6] Osage orange has been planted in all the 48 contiguous states of the United States and in southeastern Canada.[24]

The largest known Osage orange tree is located at the

Fort Harrod, a Kentucky pioneer settlement in Harrodsburg, Kentucky.[28]

Ecological aspects of historical distribution

Because of the limited original range and lack of obvious effective means of propagation, the Osage orange has been the subject of controversial claims by some authors to be an

equine species that became extinct at the same time also has been suggested as the plant's original dispersal agent because modern horses and other livestock will sometimes eat the fruit.[23] This hypothesis is controversial. For example, a 2015 study indicated that Osage orange seeds are not effectively spread by extant horse or elephant species,[30] while a 2018 study concludes that squirrels are ineffective, short-distance seed dispersers.[9] The claim has been criticised as a "just-so story" that lacks any empirical evidence.[10]

The fruit is not poisonous to humans or livestock, but is not preferred by them,

softball) and hard, dry texture.[23] The edible seeds of the fruit are used by squirrels as food.[32] Large animals such as livestock, which typically would consume fruits and disperse seeds, mainly ignore the fruit.[23]

Ecology

The fruits are consumed by black-tailed deer in Texas, and white-tailed deer and fox squirrels in the Midwest. Crossbills are said to peck the seeds out.[33] Loggerhead shrikes, a declining species in much of North America, use the tree for nesting and cache prey items upon its thorns.[34]

Cultivation

Maclura pomifera prefers a deep and fertile soil, but is hardy over most of the contiguous United States, where it is used as a hedge. It must be regularly pruned to keep it in bounds, and the shoots of a single year will grow one to two metres (3–6 ft) long, making it suitable for coppicing.[14][35] A neglected hedge will become fruit-bearing. It is remarkably free from insect predators and fungal diseases.[14] A thornless male cultivar of the species exists and is vegetatively reproduced for ornamental use.[24] M. pomifera is cultivated in Italy, the former Yugoslavia, Romania, former USSR, and India.[36]

Chemistry

Osajin and pomiferin are isoflavones present in the wood and fruit in an approximately 1:2 ratio by weight, and in turn comprise 4–6% of the weight of dry fruit and wood samples.[37] Primary components of fresh fruit include pectin (46%), resin (17%), fat (5%), and sugar (before hydrolysis, 5%).[38] The moisture content of fresh fruits is about 80%.[38]

Uses

A tree felled in 1954 exhibits little rot after more than six decades
Typical bright yellow newly-cut wood

The Osage orange is commonly used as a tree row

Franklin Delano Roosevelt's "Great Plains Shelterbelt" WPA project, which was launched in 1934 as an ambitious plan to modify weather and prevent soil erosion in the Great Plains states; by 1942 it resulted in the planting of 30,233 shelterbelts containing 220 million trees that stretched for 18,600 miles (29,900 km).[39] The sharp-thorned trees were also planted as cattle-deterring hedges before the introduction of barbed wire and afterward became an important source of fence posts.[13][40] In 2001, its wood was used in the construction in Chestertown, Maryland of the schooner Sultana, a replica of HMS Sultana.[41]

The heavy, close-grained yellow-orange wood is dense and prized for tool handles,

fustic and aniline dyes. At present, florists use the fruits of M. pomifera for decorative purposes.[43]

When dried, the wood has the highest

heating value of any commonly available North American wood, and burns long and hot.[44][45][46]

Osage orange wood is more rot-resistant than most, making good fence posts.[6] They are generally set up green because the dried wood is too hard to reliably accept the staples used to attach the fencing to the posts. Palmer and Fowler's Fieldbook of Natural History 2nd edition rates Osage orange wood as being at least twice as hard and strong as white oak (Quercus alba). Its dense grain structure makes for good tonal properties. Production of woodwind instruments and waterfowl game calls are common uses for the wood.[47]

Compounds extracted from the fruit, when concentrated, may repel insects. However, the naturally occurring concentrations of these compounds in the fruit are too low to make the fruit an effective insect repellent.[31][48][49] In 2004, the EPA insisted that a website selling M. pomifera fruits online remove any mention of their supposed repellent properties as false advertising.[43]

Traditional medicine

The Comanche formerly used a decoction of the roots topically as a wash to treat sore eyes.[50]

References

  1. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2018-1.RLTS.T61886714A61886723.en
    . Retrieved October 15, 2022.
  2. ^ "NatureServe Explorer 2.0". explorer.natureserve.org. Retrieved October 28, 2022.
  3. ^ "Maclura pomifera (Raf.) C.K. Schneid". Tropicos. Retrieved February 24, 2014.
  4. ^ "The Plant List". The Plant List. Retrieved February 24, 2014.
  5. ^ Boggs, Joe (October 15, 2021). "Bois D'Arc". Buckeye Yard & Garden Online. Ohio State University. Retrieved March 26, 2023.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Wynia, Richard L. (March 2011). "Plant fact sheet: Osage orange, Maclura pomifera (Rafin.)" (PDF). US Department of Agriculture, Natural Resources Conservation Service. Retrieved October 25, 2017.
  7. ^ Jesse, Laura; Lewis, Donald (October 24, 2014). "Hedge Apples for Home Pest Control?". Horticulture & Home Pest News. Iowa State University of Science and Technology. Retrieved January 29, 2016.
  8. ^ Wayman, Dave (March 1985). "The Osage Orange Tree: Useful and Historically Significant". Mother Earth News. Retrieved January 29, 2016.
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  12. ISBN 1578593034
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  13. ^ a b c d Wynia, Richard (March 2011). "Plant fact sheet for Osage orange (Maclura pomifera)" (PDF). Manhattan, Kansas: USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, Manhattan Plant Materials Center. Retrieved December 16, 2015.
  14. ^ a b c d e f g Keeler, Harriet L. (1900). Our Native Trees and How to Identify Them. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. pp. 258–262.
  15. ^ Barlow, Connie. "Anachronistic fruits and the ghosts who haunt them". Arnoldia 61, no. 2 (2001): 14–21.
  16. ^ Michael L. Ferro. "A Cultural and Entomological Review of the Osage Orange (Maclura pomifera (Raf.) Schneid.) (Moraceae) and the Origin and Early Spread of 'Hedge Apple' Folklore". Southeastern Naturalist, 13(m7), 1–34, (1 January 2014)
  17. ^ a b "Osage Oranges Take a Bough". Smithsonian Magazine. March 2004. p. 35.
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  24. ^ a b c Burton, J D (1990). "Maclura pomifera". In Burns, Russell M.; Honkala, Barbara H. (eds.). Hardwoods. Silvics of North America. Vol. 2. Washington, D.C.: United States Forest Service (USFS), United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Retrieved October 5, 2012 – via Southern Research Station.
  25. ^ "Tree Information". Virginia Big Trees. Retrieved November 18, 2022.
  26. ^ "The mystery of Patrick Henry's osage-orange: which enigma is greater; the age of the national champion or how it got to Virginia? - Free Online Library". www.thefreelibrary.com. Retrieved November 19, 2022.
  27. ^ "Osage-orange - VA". American Forests. Retrieved November 19, 2022.
  28. ^ Allen Bush. The Undaunted and Undented Osage Orange.
  29. ^ Bronaugh, Whit (2010). "The Trees That Miss The Mammoths". American Forests. 115 (Winter): 38–43.
  30. S2CID 86809830
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  31. ^ a b Jauron, Richard (October 10, 1997). "Facts and Myths Associated with "Hedge Apples"". Horticulture and Home Pest News. Iowa State University. Retrieved October 22, 2014.
  32. ^ Murphy, Serena, Virginia Mitchell, Jessa Thurman, Charli N. Davis, Mattew D. Moran, Jessica Bonumwezi, Sophie Katz, Jennifer L. Penner, and Matthew D. Moran. "Seed Dispersal in Osage Orange (Maclura pomifera) by Squirrels (Sciurus spp.)." The American Midland Naturalist 180, no. 2 (2018): 312-317. Harvard
  33. Bonanza Books
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