Can hedge apples be grown on the east coast?

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Question Can hedge apples be grown on the east coast?

Answer Few Easterners have heard of hedge apples. However, we have heard of osage orange trees. Maclura pomifera is the scientific name for both. This plant is native to the Red River Valley area which includes a section of southern Oklahoma and northern Texas.

Most plains folk or westerners call them hedge apples because the tree was used extensively as a living fence until the invention of barbed wire. Its natural form is a 40 to 60 ft tree. However, young trees can be pruned to form a dense thorny hedge. Ranchers would plant and prune hedge apples to make a fence “horse high, bull strong and hog tight.”

The Osage Indian tribe’s native land overlaps the natural range of the hedge apple. When heated on a warm north Texas day, the fruit of the hedge apple smells like an orange peel, hence the name Osage orange. Typically, non-ranchers (and Easterners) call the tree Osage orange and ranchers call it hedge apple.

The fruit may smell like an orange when heated, but it is the size of a giant grape fruit and looks like an alien’s brain. The seeds are edible. However, it is way too much trouble for a small bland reward. Squirrels love the seeds and don’t mind tearing the giant alien brains to pieces. These tree rats quickly learn to make tracks when they hear a hedge apple falling through the tree limbs. One good direct hit could put a squirrel out of commission.

While a thornless, fruitless male can be planted as an ornamental tree, where is the sense of adventure? Why plant a male when a female tree can be planted near a barn with a tin roof, beside a swimming pool, within an outdoor café or adjacent to a busy sidewalk. Of course my favorite spot is next to a glass greenhouse. The potential landscape uses of this tree are endless.

Osage orange trees are growing in 48 states. They grow fine on the east coast. Scientists think their native distribution covered most of the US. Seeds from large fruited trees are typically spread by large animals. Scientists now think a giant ground sloth was responsible for moving the Osage orange seeds around the US. This animal became extinct shortly after humans colonized North America. The federal government has assumed the responsibility of the giant ground sloth (very well suited for this position). For more info, visit http://www.na.fs.fed.us/pubs/silvics_manual/volume_2/maclura/pomifera.htm If you don’t have internet access, then call (910) 893-7533 or email me a gpierce@harnett.org

A third common name for hedge apple is bodark. Early French settlers observed Osage Indians making war clubs and bows from the wood (some observed the wood at point blank). The settlers called it “bois d’arc” or “bow-wood.” The Indians preferred this bow-wood which would shoot “settler high, buffalo strong and arrow grouping tight.”

Gary L. Pierce

Horticulture Extension Agent

Harnett County