An Iowa Garden

The Osage orange tree (Maclura pomifera) is a tree of my youth here in the midwest; they were quite commonly seen on old farmsteads back then. Most of the trees are gone now, and more than a few of the old farms. I can remember the fruit being used as a Thanksgiving table decoration, usually in a bowl with leaves, nuts, and maybe a couple of apples. Back then it was still possible to see the trees in rows that were originally planted as hedges, and so the fruits were often called hedge apples. The Osage orange tree was native to the area of the Red and Arkansas River valleys in the tri-state area of Texas, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. This was where the Osage Indians lived, thus the name Osage orange (actually in earlier times it was more often called Osage apple... oranges were not exactly common then). The Osage Indians prized this tree for its wood, which is extremely tough, and was used to make the finest bows... the early French explorers called it "bois d' arc", wood of the bow. The trees were then planted widely in the plains states as hedges, for wind breaks, and fencing before barbed wire was invented. The trees are naturally very twiggy, with sharp thorns, and when kept trimmed down, they form an impenetrable hedge barrier. Later, the trees were cut for fenceposts, the wood being almost indestructible. Lewis & Clark found this tree on their Voyage of Discovery in 1803-6, and sent first seeds in 1804, then in 1806, cuttings back east, and the trees became quite popular there, and are still to be found all along the eastern U.S., from New England to Florida. Several very large specimens are to be seen in the churchyard of St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Philadelphia, that are said to be from original Lewis & Clark cuttings.
Then there is the mystery of the Osage orange tree on Patrick Henry's estate. His last residence was Red Hill, in Brookneal, Virginia, where he lived until his death in 1799, and there resides the largest Osage orange tree in the country; almost 27 feet in girth, sixty feet high, with an 85 foot spread. There had been speculation about this tree for a long time, due to its obvious great age. In the summer, 2003 issue of American Forests, Nancy Ross Hugo published an article about this tree; it was examined by a dendrologist, who was unable to obtain a definitive specimen because the tree is multi-trunked, with rot in the center of the trunks. However, the expert estimated the tree to be about 350 years old, pre-dating the white settlers. It has been theorized that a Native American trader may have brought the tree back to plant as bow-wood. However, some doubt the age estimate that has been placed on the tree, and if you think about it, it seems unlikely to me that an otherwise unknown species of tree as striking as an old Osage orange could sit there in Patrick Henry's yard and not be noticed. Admittedly it's a male (Osage oranges are dioecious with male and female trees), so it bears no fruit (even if it was a female, since no willing male tree would have been around to fertilize it, you still would not have seen fruit). However, Osage orange trees, especially old ones, are quite striking and distinctive even without fruit, and hard to miss. It seems more likely this tree was planted from material sent back from Lewis & Clark, and thus was planted after Patrick Henry died. But, it's an interesting story, and it's nice to still have some mysteries about.
Below is pictured a large Osage orange tree that sits in one of our local parks, unheralded, and relatively un-noticed, though it is a female, and children still carry home its large fruit every fall.