50-467: Maclura pomifera , commonly known as the Osage orange ( / ˈ oʊ s eɪ dʒ / OH -sayj ), is a small deciduous tree or large shrub , native to the south-central United States. It typically grows about 8 to 15 metres (30–50 ft) tall. The distinctive fruit, a multiple fruit , is roughly spherical, bumpy, 8 to 15 centimetres (3–6 in) in diameter, and turns bright yellow-green in
100-410: A decoction of the roots topically as a wash to treat sore eyes. Deciduous In the fields of horticulture and botany , the term deciduous ( / d ɪ ˈ s ɪ dʒ u . ə s / ) means "falling off at maturity" and "tending to fall off", in reference to trees and shrubs that seasonally shed leaves , usually in the autumn ; to the shedding of petals , after flowering; and to
150-416: A " just-so story " that lacks any empirical evidence. The fruit is not poisonous to humans or livestock, but is not preferred by them, because it is mostly inedible due to a large size (about the diameter of a softball ) and hard, dry texture. The edible seeds of the fruit are used by squirrels as food. Large animals such as livestock , which typically would consume fruits and disperse seeds, mainly ignore
200-399: A behavior known as " marcescence " whereby dead leaves are not shed in the fall and remain on the tree until being blown off by the weather. This is caused by incomplete development of the abscission layer. It is mainly seen in the seedling and sapling stage, although mature trees may have marcescence of leaves on the lower branches. A number of deciduous plants remove nitrogen and carbon from
250-428: A bow made of Osage timber could be traded for a horse and a blanket. Additionally, a yellow-orange dye can be extracted from the wood, which can be used as a substitute for fustic and aniline dyes. At present, florists use the fruits of M. pomifera for decorative purposes. When dried, the wood has the highest heating value of any commonly available North American wood, and burns long and hot. Osage orange wood
300-458: A corruption of bois d'arc . The Comanche also used this wood for their bows. They liked the wood because it was strong, flexible and durable, and the bush/tree was common along river bottoms of 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
350-468: A fruit coevolved with a large animal seed dispersal partner that is now extinct. This hypothesis is controversial. Maclura pomifera has many names, including mock orange, hedge apple, hedge ball, monkey ball, pap, monkey brains and yellow-wood. The name bois d'arc (from French meaning "bow-wood") has also been corrupted into bodark and bodock . The earliest account of the tree in the English language
400-602: A greater rate of transpiration (and hence CO 2 uptake as this occurs when stomata are open) during the summer growth period. The deciduous characteristic has developed repeatedly among woody plants. Trees include maple , many oaks and nothofagus , elm , beech , aspen , and birch , among others, as well as a number of coniferous genera , such as larch and Metasequoia . Deciduous shrubs include honeysuckle , viburnum , and many others. Most temperate woody vines are also deciduous, including grapes , poison ivy , Virginia creeper , wisteria , etc. The characteristic
450-502: 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. As a dioecious plant, the inconspicuous pistillate (female) and 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
500-623: A slender growing shoot 90 to 120 centimetres (3–4 ft) long. In form they are simple , a long oval terminating in a slender point. The leaves are 8 to 13 centimetres (3–5 in) long and 5 to 8 centimetres (2–3 in) wide, and are thick, firm, dark green, shining above, and paler green below when full grown. In autumn they turn bright yellow. The 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
550-407: Is a syncarp of numerous small drupes , in which the 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. The seeds are oblong. Although the flowering is dioecious, the pistillate tree when isolated will still bear large oranges, perfect to
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#1732783018899600-606: Is a deciduous woody shrub found in Japan . Forests where a majority of the trees lose their foliage at the end of the typical growing season are called deciduous forests. These forests are found in many areas worldwide and have distinctive ecosystems, understory growth, and soil dynamics. Two distinctive types of deciduous forests are found growing around the world. Temperate deciduous forest biomes are plant communities distributed in North and South America, Asia, Southern slopes of
650-572: Is about 80%. The Osage orange is commonly used as a tree row windbreak in prairie states, which gives it one of its colloquial names, "hedge apple". It was one of the primary trees used in President 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
700-700: Is completed (marked by the transition from bright green spring leaves to dark green summer ones) the chlorophyll level in the leaves remains stable until cool temperatures arrive in autumn. When autumn arrives and the days are shorter or when plants are drought-stressed, the chlorophyll steadily breaks down, allowing other pigments present in the leaf to become apparent and resulting in non-green colored foliage. The brightest leaf colors are produced when days grow short and nights are cool, but remain above freezing. These other pigments include carotenoids that are yellow, brown, and orange. Anthocyanin pigments produce red and purple colors, though they are not always present in
750-482: Is cultivated in Italy , the former Yugoslavia , Romania , former USSR , and India . 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. Primary components of fresh fruit include pectin (46%), resin (17%), fat (5%), and sugar (before hydrolysis, 5%). The moisture content of fresh fruits
800-466: Is dark, deeply furrowed and scaly. The plant has significant potential to invade unmanaged habitats. The wood of M. pomifera is golden to bright yellow but fades to medium brown with ultraviolet light exposure. The wood is heavy, hard, strong, and flexible, capable of receiving a fine polish and very durable in contact with the ground. It has a specific gravity of 0.7736 or 773.6 kg/m (48.29 lb/cu ft). Leaves are arranged alternately in
850-422: Is dense and prized for tool handles, treenails , fence posts, and other applications requiring a strong, dimensionally stable wood that withstands rot. Although its wood is commonly knotty and twisted, straight-grained Osage orange timber makes good bows , as used by Native Americans. John Bradbury , a Scottish botanist who had traveled the interior United States extensively in the early 19th century, reported that
900-400: Is formed between the leaf petiole and the stem. This layer is formed in the spring during active new growth of the leaf; it consists of layers of cells that can separate from each other. The cells are sensitive to a plant hormone called auxin that is produced by the leaf and other parts of the plant. When auxin coming from the leaf is produced at a rate consistent with that from the body of
950-498: Is more rot-resistant than most, making good fence posts. 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
1000-414: 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 . A neglected hedge will become fruit-bearing. It is remarkably free from insect predators and fungal diseases. A thornless male cultivar of the species exists and is vegetatively reproduced for ornamental use. M. pomifera
1050-530: Is useful in plant identification; for instance in parts of Southern California and the American Southeast , deciduous and evergreen oak species may grow side by side. Periods of leaf fall often coincide with seasons: winter in the case of cool-climate plants or the dry-season in the case of tropical plants, however there are no deciduous species among tree-like monocotyledonous plants, e.g. palms , yuccas , and dracaenas . The hydrangea hirta
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#17327830188991100-594: The Osage Nation ". (Note: This referred to Pierre Chouteau, a fur trader from 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. 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,
1150-456: The dry season or other seasons, depending on variations in rainfall . The converse of deciduous is evergreen , where foliage is shed on a different schedule from deciduous plants, therefore appearing to remain green year round because not all the leaves are shed at the same time. Plants that are intermediate may be called semi-deciduous ; they lose old foliage as new growth begins. Other plants are semi-evergreen and lose their leaves before
1200-503: The foliage before they are shed and store them in the form of proteins in the vacuoles of parenchyma cells in the roots and the inner bark. In the spring, these proteins are used as a nitrogen source during the growth of new leaves or flowers. Plants with deciduous foliage have advantages and disadvantages compared to plants with evergreen foliage. Since deciduous plants lose their leaves to conserve water or to better survive winter weather conditions, they must regrow new foliage during
1250-572: The "crucial stop-gap measure for westward expansion until the introduction of barbed wire a few decades later". The trees were named bois d'arc ("bow-wood") by early French settlers who observed the wood being used for war clubs and bow-making by Native Americans . 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." The trees are also known as "bodark", "bodarc", or "bodock" trees, most likely originating as
1300-844: The Himalayas, Europe and for cultivation purposes in Oceania. They have formed under climatic conditions which have great seasonable temperature variability. Growth occurs during warm summers, leaf drop in autumn, and dormancy during cold winters. These seasonally distinctive communities have diverse life forms that are impacted greatly by the seasonality of their climate, mainly temperature and precipitation rates. These varying and regionally different ecological conditions produce distinctive forest plant communities in different regions. Tropical and subtropical deciduous forest biomes have developed in response not to seasonal temperature variations but to seasonal rainfall patterns. During prolonged dry periods
1350-711: The United States and Ontario, Canada. Osage orange has been planted in all the 48 contiguous states of the United States and in southeastern Canada. The largest known Osage orange tree is located at the Patrick Henry National Memorial , in Brookneal, Virginia , and is believed to be almost 350 years old. Another historic tree is located on the grounds of Fort Harrod , a Kentucky pioneer settlement in Harrodsburg, Kentucky . Because of
1400-441: 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
1450-428: The earliest trees to lose their leaves in the fall. In sub-Arctic climates such as Alaska , leaves begin turning colors as early as August. However, for most temperate regions it takes place in late September through early November and in subtropical climates such as the southern US, it may be November into December. Leaf drop or abscission involves complex physiological signals and changes within plants. When leafout
1500-701: The fall months and the Western United States as it has more evergreen and fewer deciduous plants, combined with the West Coast and its maritime climate. ( See also : Autumn leaf color ) Most of the Southern Hemisphere lacks deciduous plants due to its milder winters and smaller landmass, most of which is nearer the equator with only far southern South America and the southern island of New Zealand producing distinct fall colors. The beginnings of leaf drop starts when an abscission layer
1550-505: The fall. The fruits secrete a sticky white latex when cut or damaged. Despite the name "Osage orange", it is not related to the orange . It is a member of the mulberry family, Moraceae . 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,
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1600-591: The flowers can be damaged by frost or, in dry season regions, result in water stress on the plant. Spring leafout and fall leaf drop are triggered by a combination of daylight and air temperatures. The exact conditions required will vary with the species, but generally more cold-tolerant genera such as Salix will leaf-out earlier and lose their leaves later, while genera such as Fraxinus and Juglans can only grow in warm, frost-free conditions so they need at least 13 hours of daylight and air temperatures of around 70 °F (21 °C) to leaf out. They will be among
1650-426: The foliage is dropped to conserve water and prevent death from drought. Leaf drop is not seasonally dependent as it is in temperate climates. It can occur any time of year and varies by region of the world. Even within a small local area there can be variations in the timing and duration of leaf drop; different sides of the same mountain and areas that have high water tables or areas along streams and rivers can produce
1700-525: The fruit. 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. Loggerhead shrikes , a declining species in much of North America, use the tree for nesting and cache prey items upon its thorns. Maclura pomifera prefers a deep and fertile soil, but is hardy over most of the contiguous United States, where it
1750-706: The great wealth of the Spiroan Mississippian culture that controlled all the land in which these trees grew. The genus Maclura is named in honor of William Maclure (1763–1840), a Scottish-born American geologist. The specific epithet pomifera means "fruit-bearing". 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. Mature trees range from 12 to 20 metres (40–65 ft) tall with short trunks and round-topped canopies. The roots are thick, fleshy, and covered with bright orange bark. The tree's mature bark
1800-416: 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. By providing a barrier that was "horse-high, bull-strong, and pig-tight", Osage orange hedges provided
1850-417: The humid maritime climate and lower overall species diversity . It is also a factor that the continental United States and southern Canada are at a lower latitude than northern Europe, so the sun during the fall months is higher and stronger. This combination of strong sun and cool temperatures leads to more intense fall colors. The Southern United States also has poor fall colors due to warm temperatures during
1900-470: The leaves. Rather, they are produced in the foliage in late summer, when sugars are trapped in the leaves after the process of abscission begins. Parts of the world that have showy displays of bright autumn colors are limited to locations where days become short and nights are cool. The New England region of the United States and southeastern Canada tend to produce particularly good autumn colors for this reason, with Europe producing generally poorer colors due to
1950-407: 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 evolutionary anachronism , whereby one or more now extinct Pleistocene megafauna , such as ground sloths , mammoths , mastodons or gomphotheres , fed on the fruit and aided in seed dispersal. An equine species that became extinct at
2000-412: The next growing season, retaining some during winter or dry periods. Many deciduous plants flower during the period when they are leafless, as this increases the effectiveness of pollination . The absence of leaves improves wind transmission of pollen for wind-pollinated plants and increases the visibility of the flowers to insects in insect-pollinated plants. This strategy is not without risks, as
2050-783: The next suitable growing season; this uses resources which evergreens do not need to expend. Evergreens suffer greater water loss during the winter and they also can experience greater predation pressure , especially when small. Deciduous trees experience much less branch and trunk breakage from glaze ice storms when leafless, and plants can reduce water loss due to the reduction in availability of liquid water during cold winter days. Losing leaves in winter may reduce damage from insects; repairing leaves and keeping them functional may be more costly than just losing and regrowing them. Removing leaves also reduces cavitation which can damage xylem vessels in plants. This then allows deciduous plants to have xylem vessels with larger diameters and therefore
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2100-432: 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 orange (the fruit) , about 10 to 13 centimetres (4–5 in) in diameter, with a roughened and tuberculated surface. The compound (or multiple) fruit
2150-469: The plant, the cells of the abscission layer remain connected; in autumn, or when under stress, the auxin flow from the leaf decreases or stops, triggering cellular elongation within the abscission layer. The elongation of these cells breaks the connection between the different cell layers, allowing the leaf to break away from the plant. It also forms a layer that seals the break, so the plant does not lose sap. Some trees, particularly oaks and beeches, exhibit
2200-524: The planting of 30,233 shelterbelts containing 220 million trees that stretched for 18,600 miles (29,900 km). 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. In 2001, its wood was used in the construction in Chestertown, Maryland of the schooner Sultana , a replica of HMS Sultana . The heavy, close-grained yellow-orange wood
2250-433: 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. This hypothesis is controversial. For example, a 2015 study indicated that Osage orange seeds are not effectively spread by extant horse or elephant species, while a 2018 study concludes that squirrels are ineffective, short-distance seed dispersers. The claim has been criticised as
2300-486: The shedding of ripe fruit . The antonym of deciduous in the botanical sense is evergreen . Generally, the term "deciduous" means "the dropping of a part that is no longer needed or useful" and the "falling away after its purpose is finished". In plants, it is the result of natural processes. "Deciduous" has a similar meaning when referring to animal parts, such as deciduous antlers in deer , deciduous teeth (baby teeth) in some mammals (including humans); or decidua ,
2350-619: The sight but lacking the seeds. The fruit has a cucumber -like flavor. Osage orange's pre-Columbian range was largely restricted to a small area in what is now the United States, namely the Red River drainage of Oklahoma , Texas , and Arkansas , as well as the Blackland Prairies and post oak savannas . A disjunct population also occurred in the Chisos Mountains of Texas. It has since become widely naturalized in
2400-464: The uterine lining that sheds off after birth. In botany and horticulture , deciduous plants , including trees , shrubs and herbaceous perennials, are those that lose all of their leaves for part of the year. This process is called abscission . In some cases leaf loss coincides with winter—namely in temperate or polar climates . In other parts of the world, including tropical, subtropical, and arid regions, plants lose their leaves during
2450-464: The wood. 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. In 2004, the EPA insisted that a website selling M. pomifera fruits online remove any mention of their supposed repellent properties as false advertising. The Comanche formerly used
2500-603: Was given by William Dunbar , a Scottish explorer, in his narrative of a journey made in 1804 from St. Catherine's Landing on the Mississippi River to the Ouachita River . Meriwether Lewis sent some slips and cuttings of the curiosity to President Jefferson in March 1804. According to Lewis's letter, the samples were donated by "Mr. Peter Choteau, who resided the greater portion of his time for many years with
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