Pumpkin , osage Orange River , honey locust crown of thorn at Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest Clermont , KY
The Osage River orange tree does n’t have a big following but I have become a crowing fan . I enjoy its beautiful , glossy immature foliage and its yellow varnished wood . And there ’s something even more irresistibly loveable about the misshapen , softball - sized pallid dark-green fruit that calculate like an extraterrestrial being ’s brain .
The timber is hard as nail , too . I acknowledge this first script . I once owned a 1973 Datsun pick - up that flap forward down a steep J. J. Hill and off a thorny Osage orange tree diagram . My penance has been a tenacious journeying . I ca n’t look at one now without thinking about the crumpled heap that I sold for scrap . The tree diagram was n’t dented . I learned the heavy mode to put on the hand brake .
Pumpkin, osage orange, honey locust crown of thorns at Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest Clermont, KY
I ’ve admired two mighty and historic Osage River oranges in the retiring calendar month . The first is at Fort Harrod , one of the earliest Kentucky pioneer settlement in Harrodsburg , Kentucky . The other whopper is on the American Horticultural Society ’s River Farm in Alexandria , Virginia . Both have been contenders for the American champion Osage River orangeness . The admirer of them all is at theRed Hill Patrick Henry Foundationin Charlotte County , VA .
These three trees were mayhap among the first passalongs from the Lewis and Clark Expedition . Stephen Ambrose , inUndaunted Courage , described Meriwether Lewis being given “ slips ” of the “ Osage apple ” in St. Louis by Jean Pierre Chouteau , the French Creole pelt monger and businessman . Chouteau received young plants or traded the “ Osage River apple ” from the Osage Indians , 300 mile to the Cicily Isabel Fairfield of St. Louis . Meriwether Lewis wrote to Jefferson , “ So much do the savages esteem the wood of this tree for the purpose of make their bows , that they move many hundreds of miles in quest of it . ”Maclura pomifera , commonly known later as the Osage orangeness , was the expedition ’s first introduction of an unknown species from west of the Mississippi River . The first executable seeds of the mulberry tree congener were take from Chouteau ’s garden on the expedition ’s issue in 1806 . The first trees were imbed in Philadelphia , at Monticello and perhaps on George Washington ’s River Farm , just up the Potomac from Mount Vernon . It was n’t long before the Osage River Orange River made its way to Kentucky . The trees at Fort Harrod and River Farm have stood for over 200 years .
The Osage orange , unfortunately , earned a spoiled reputation decade before my bad luck with the hand truck . Its golden era , as one of the most widely planted trees , begin to pass off in the late 19thcentury . There ’s only a minuscule interest in bois d’arc ( wood bows ) anymore , and impenetrable thorny fencerows , made from the tree , fall out of favour after bristled wire follow along .
Osage orange silent auction item at American Hort Society.
Nor is Osage orange at the top of anyone ’s murder parade of standout landscape painting trees . Besides the artillery - grade irritant , nobody want to park their car underneath a female Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree when it is raining green bombs in September and October . I asked Ben Miller , who farms near Shakertown , not far from Harrodsburg , if he ’d ever planted an Osage Orange River and he said , “ Not if I could avail it . ” Farmers recover them a nuisance . The hedgerow Malus pumila can lodge in the esophagus of cows , and the thorns deflate tractor tires .
The spikelet are a likely remnant from the Pleistocene era . Claude Stephens , Education Director atBernheim Forest and Research Arboretum , said , “ The thorn on the honey locust tree , and , I imagine , the Osage River orangeness as well , were plant defense mechanism protecting the tree from Pleistocene megafauna . It ’s also a plausible theory that some of these Pleistocene megafauna ( jumbo ground sloths , mastodons , etc . ) were important in seed dispersal . ”
Someone needs to diffuse the church doctrine . Any tree with a chronicle of land sloths , that transplants easily , is resistant of wet and dry soils , and is not busy about pH ca n’t be all bad . And the Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree is bound to have a few supporter if you may also exact that it is insect- and disease - resistant , withstands drought and wind , and has rot - insubordinate Mrs. Henry Wood . Yet you could count the proselytizers on one hand .
Rose Bush and Kurt Bluemel under Osage Orange at American Hort Society HQ.
John Pairloved and promote Osage oranges , in Kansas , for over 30 years . He left a few acolyte to carry the great mullein , notably Guy Sternberg of theStarhill Forest Arboretumin Petersburg , Illinois , and Andy Schmitz of theBrenton Arboretumin Dallas Center , Iowa . Andy is happy to babble out the tree diagram ’s congratulations and counts 27 survival of the fittest that he has acquired from the John Pair Center , from Sternberg , and from others . Among them are oddities such as‘Cannon Ball’with a yield that weighs - in at a hefty three British pound sterling and ‘ BB ’ that produces tiny hedge ball . But the finish , in a perfect world of care - gratis horticulture , would be to introduce a male ( no yield ! ) with no prickle . Schmitz says ‘ Denmark ’ ‘ Keokuk ’ , ‘ Derby ’ and ‘ Triple atomic number 8 ’ look promising . life sentence has to be full of promise for anyone who loves an Osage orange tree .
Osage orange understood auction bridge particular at American Hort Society .
Rose Bush and Kurt Bluemel under Osage Orange at American Hort Society HQ .
Last month , Rose and I attended , with Hannah andKurt Bluemel , the annual gala for theAmerican Horticultural Societyat the beautiful River Farm . There was a dumb auction sale with lovely wooden bowls , tardy flowering daylily , and tempt horticulture books . I had my eye on two cuttings of the historical River Farm Osage orange tree , root by Andy Schmitz and pot - up in 4 ½ ” pots . I keep bidding up to $ 125.00 . Was I out of my mind ?
I lost to the high bidder of $ 150.00 . I should have kept an eye on the bid sheet . Nutty or not , I would have travel high .
