Search
OHIO BIG TREES
Additional Resources:


America's forestry movement actually started in Ohio with the creation of the American Forestry Association in Cincinnati in 1875.

Division of Forestry
2045 Morse Rd.
Building H1.
Columbus, OH 43229

Osage Orange (Maclura pomifera)
A deciduous tree from the Mulberry Family (Moraceae)

4-9
40'
40'
Rapid
Full to
partial
Arching and Spreading
Wide Range
Osage Orange, a tree introduced into Ohio during the 1800's, is commonly seen in rural areas where it frequents fields and fencerows. Its usage as a large hedge tree in a row planting and the softball-sized fruits of female trees give it the alternative common name of Hedge Apple.

The Osage Indians of the southern Great Plains and the resemblance of its fruits to lime-colored oranges give it the more common name of Osage Orange.

Commercially, its very strong wood is used to make the best bows for archery. When its wood is used as fenceposts or laid-down timbers, it takes decades to completely rot. Most parts of the tree exude a sticky white sap containing latex when wounded or cut.

A native of portions of Arkansas, Texas, and Oklahoma, Osage Orange loves the prolonged hot and dry conditions of summer, and thrives in poor soils. Specimens found in the open are upright and rapidly growing in youth, becoming arching and spreading with age, reaching 40 feet in height and 40 feet in width with a dense crown of interlacing, thorny branches. A distinctive growth habit is the repeatedly arching branches that hang down at the ends, but periodically send up vertical shoots. As a member of the Mulberry Family, it is related to the Mulberries and Figs.

Planting Requirements - The adaptability of Osage Orange to a wide range of soils (organic, clay, sandy, or rocky, with acidic or alkaline pH) and moisture levels (wet, moist, or very dry) accounts for its widespread distribution throughout the eastern, midwestern, and Great Plains areas of the United States, far beyond its native range. It is most noteworthy during prolonged hot and dry summers, when its dark green, shiny foliage never fades or wilts. Osage Orange grows in full sun to partial sun, and is found in zones 4 to 9.

Potential Problems - Osage Orange is virtually disease and pest free, although dead branches persist in the interior of the canopy for years due to self-shading, and the fact that the wood is rot-resistant. However, surface roots with age, heavy fruit litter beneath female trees in autumn, and extreme thorniness (especially in youth and on its lower branches) are its landscape liabilities. Its rapid and vigorous establishment in the first few years after planting are among its greatest attributes, however.
Leaf Identification Features
The bright green to dark green leaves of Osage Orange are alternate, shiny, ovate to broadly elliptical, with smooth margins and a drawn-out tip.

Fall color ranges from green-yellow to bright yellow, and can be excellent in some autumns. Its leaves change color and drop from the tree later than most other trees, usually in November and December.
Other Identification Features

Osage Orange, a dioecious species, has separate male and female trees, each with its characteristic male or female flowers which often go unnoticed in early summer.

Fruits from female trees are huge, round balls containing many small interior seeds, which are relished by squirrels in autumn and winter.

The lime-colored fruits weight down the branches by late summer and fall beneath the tree when ripened, serving as a good identification characteristic. The large fruits were reportedly sliced in half by the pioneers and used to attract and poison houseflies.

Stems of most Osage Orange trees are thorny, and the branches arch and interlace to form a "living barbed wire tree". Modern selections being made for commercial or landscape plantings are males that are nearly thornless removing the two greatest liabilities of large fruits and dangerous thorns.

The mature bark of Osage Orange has flattened and interlacing brown-gray ridges, with deep orange furrows. The wood has a narrow layer of creamy-yellow sapwood that exudes a sticky white sap when cut, surrounding the interior bright-yellow heartwood, which is very hard and heavy.

Upon exposure to air, the heartwood changes from bright yellow to dull orange over the course of several days.

This tree also develops a flared basal trunk that merges with the large surface roots near the base. When found at stream banks, the exposed roots of Osage Orange are a bright orange.

Wood chips were boiled by the early settlers to extract a yellow dye.