Also called | thorny locust.
Part of
🥜︎ legume / bean / pea family Fabaceae
in
order Fabales.
Native to the 🇺🇸 USA Mississippi River and Ohio River basins, and surrounding areas east of the ⛰ Rocky Mountains.
🗺 Map by county (🇺🇸 USA-48),
🗺 map (North America, Central America), 
🗺 today + with climate change (eastern 🇺🇸 USA).
Invasive > 🌐︎ various
Uses by native peoples
(Ethnobotany database)
Gleditsia hosts caterpillars of 43 species
of butterflies and moths, in some areas.
Most legumes (but not this species) cooperate with a bacterium that fixes
atmospheric nitrogen into a form usable by plants and animals.
In the wild, this tree's branches and trunk have large smooth | thorns.
For home use, nurseries sell thorn-free cultivars.
Often grows in clonal colonies
[1]
— look around for other stems!
Planting info (SW Michigan).
Honey locust have large tough seedpods, which contain sweet pulp and large seeds, with a thick waterproof coating that needs to be cut or abraded before 🌱︎ germination. This seed protection probably evolved with and to be spread by
🐘︎ mammoth genus Mammuthus
or
🐫︎ camel family Camelidae.
After the
Holocene extinction
removed large herbivorous megafauna, poor seed-dispersal caused the plant's range to decline to the central 🇺🇸 USA.
Lately,
🐮︎ cattle genus Bos
may have taken the role as seed disperser.
[2]
References
[1]
"Clonal colony." Wikipedia.
Accessed .
[2]
"The Trees That Miss The Mammoths." American Forests. .
Accessed .