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THE Osage Orange
About the Osage Orange :
The Osage Orange tree, Maclura pomifera, has
bright green summer leaves with yellow fall color.
The Osage Orange bears an inedible fruit resembling
a woody orange. It is sometmes called the Hedge
Apple tree and Mock Orange and Bodark tree. Native
to the midwestern and southeastern United States,
this species is also known as the hedge apple
because it was planted in thicket-like hedge rows
before the advent of barbed wire fences. The fruit
is neither an orange nor an apple, although it
approaches the size of those fruits. In fact, the
bumpy surface of the fruit is due to the numerous,
tightly-packed ovaries of the female flowers.
The wood of osage orange was highly prized by the
Osage Indians of Arkansas and Missouri for bows. In
fact, osage orange trees are stronger than oak (Quercus)
and as tough as hickory (Carya), and is considered
by archers to be one of the finest native North
American woods for bows. In Arkansas, in the early
19th century, a good osage bow was worth a horse and
a blanket. A yellow-orange dye is also extracted
from the wood and is used as a substitute for fustic
and aniline dyes in arts and industry. |
