Also called hedge apple, horse apple, monkey ball, bois d'arc, bodark, and bodock.
Part of
fig/mulberry family Moraceae
in
🍎︎ apple / 🍇︎ berry / buckthorn / elm / hemp / 🌹︎ rose order Rosales.
Native to 🇺🇸 USA: eastern Texas, extending a bit into Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana.
🌎︎ Map (.pdf).
But quickly planted all over farmland in the USA, extending into southern 🇨🇦 Canada.
In the autumn, produces large numbers of tough fruit. Once widespread in the 🌎︎ Americas, it probably evolved this tough fruit with and to be spread by
🐘︎ mastodon genus Mammut,
🐘︎ mammoth genus Mammuthus
and
giant ground-sloth genus Megatherium.
[1]
[2]
After the
Holocene extinction
removed these large herbivorous megafauna, the fruit usually rotted-in-place, leading to poor seed-dispersal and a steep decline in range to one river valley in parts of Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas.
[1]
[2]
Uses by native peoples
(Ethnobotany database)
American Indians valued (among other things) the tree's 💪︎ strong, flexible wood to make ♐︎ bows for ➳ arrows.
Later, Europeans named the locals Osage Indians, and named the tree after them.
[1]
[2]
Due to the tree's long
thorns
and the way the tree spreads, farmers soon planted the tree widely along fencelines. The tree is now quite common across the 🇺🇸 USA and 🇨🇦 Ontario.
[3]
Maclura hosts caterpillars of 8 species
of butterflies and moths, in some areas.
Planting info (SW Michigan) (.pdf).
References
[1]
"The Trees That Miss The Mammoths." American Forests. .
Accessed .
[2]
"Anachronistic Fruits and the Ghosts Who Haunt Them" by Connie Barlow. Arnoldia. . (.pdf)
Accessed .
[3]
Personal communication, a while back by EP's great-aunt and -uncle to EP. They had several on their property line.