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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 |
