The World of Apples

The apples that aren't

Hedge apple

Maclura pomifera, Moraceae

The Osage orange, also called hedge, hedge-apple, bodark and bois-d’arc, produces no sawtimber or pulpwood, yet “has been planted in greater numbers than almost any other tree species in North America”3. Its natural range is the Red River drainage of Oklahoma, Texas and Arkansas, with the Blackland Prairies and the Chisos Mountains of Texas3; Kew gives south-eastern Oklahoma to Texas and Arkansas2.

Prairie farmers planted it as field hedges before barbed wire was available; hedges around every quarter-section were common in places, and were cut every ten to sixteen years for fence posts3. It “led directly to the invention of barbed wire, and then provided most of the posts for the wire that fenced the West”3. The Osage used its branch wood for bows3.

The fruit is a large multiple fruit, yellowish green, 7.6 to 15 cm across and often over a kilogram, which “resembles an orange”3 but is inedible4. Bruised, it oozes a bitter milky juice that may cause a rash, and wildlife seldom eats it3. The epithet pomifera means fruit-bearing5.

Sources

  1. GBIF Backbone Taxonomy: Maclura pomifera, Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Supports: the accepted name and family.
  2. Plants of the World Online: Maclura pomifera, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Supports: the accepted name and the native range, "SE. Oklahoma to Texas and Arkansas".
  3. Osage-Orange, in Silvics of North America, J. D. Burton, US Forest Service, 1990. Supports: the names hedge, hedge-apple, bodark and bois-d'arc; planted in greater numbers than almost any other North American tree; the natural range; hedges in all 48 conterminous states and south-eastern Canada; field hedges before barbed wire, posts, and the invention of barbed wire; Osage bows; the fruit, its size, its milky juice, and its being little eaten by wildlife.
  4. Osage orange, American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, fifth edition, HarperCollins, 2022. Supports: a spiny tree of the south-central United States with round, greenish, inedible fruit, formerly used in hedgerows.
  5. pōmifer, in Lewis and Short, A Latin Dictionary, Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short, via Logeion, University of Chicago. Supports: pomifer, fruit-bearing.