Crow's Nest: More plants we love

I'm sure you've seen the fruit where it eventually ends up: smashed on the ground. It's from the Osage-orange tree.

When you see a name hyphenated like that, it usually means it is not the same as or related to the species that makes up part of the name. The Osage-orange is not in the citrus family, it's in the Moraceae: the mulberry family. Another common name for the tree, hedge-apple, follows the same pattern: it's not a kind of apple tree either. This doesn't hold up for all hyphenated names but might serve as an alert that the plant is not botanically related to what it looks like and that common names are highly variable and inconsistent.

Osage orange, Maclura pomifera, is not native to this region but to Oklahoma and Texas. But it was widely planted for pasture fencing before barbed wire became popular—the trees can be pruned to form a thicket. Later it was planted to be cut for fence posts; it's a very rot resistant wood.

I think the "brainy" fruit is interesting ("a wide globose syncarp of drupes" in Dirr, Manual of Woody Landscape Plants, p. 505). The species has male and female trees, so the female trees in fruit are more conspicuous.

There are lots of interesting stories about the tree and its uses; search on the botanic name for a wealth of them. Dirr has a quick summary in his entry on this plant, including that the wood has been widely used for making bows, a dye can be extracted, and squirrels seek out the fruit. It also has the highest heat content of any fuel wood (University of Nebraska Cooperative Extension), higher than white oak or black locust.

Dirr also notes that Osage-orange is not a pretty landscape tree but is good for rugged sites; disease and pest resistant and tolerates almost any conditions. (Plants that match this description sometimes prove to be invasive, but I don't know it to be that either.)

We have only one Osage-orange on the preserve. I will send a packet of Natural Lands Trust notecards to the first person who tells me where on the preserve it is located: 610-286-7955.