I’ve never seen one myself by I’d say that is the fruit of Maclura pomifera.

osage orange.. bit of outer space looking isnt it .. lol ..

in the olden days... it was planted as a hedge bush/tree ... i think i recall due to long spikes on the plant .. that is why it is probably called the hedge apple ...

i dont recall much use for the fruit .. but MIGHT have some recollection of indians using them for something or other... no reference for that.. lol ... though im sure you can search that out now that you have both name ... formal and common ...

and thank god they are too heavy for younger children to throw at each other ... lol

kne

I doubt it could fall far from its parent tree, unless it was thrown..... :)

Here's my male clone graft osage orange, 'Whiteshield' after 15 years.

oh god no.. and if you happen to be under the tree it would probably knock you out..

no scale in the pic.. but they are 6 to 8 inches across ... and at least a couple pounds ...

i further seem to think.. the thorns on the trunk ... would keep your animals on your farm.. hence the use ... god given barbed wire or some such ...

ken

Yes, Osage Orange. I grew up calling them hedge apples. I found a random one in my backyard last week that had been washed away into a creek by heavy rains.

Definitely Maclura pomifera. I can't vouch for the veracity of the claim, but the folk lore says that the fruit is an ant repellent. I've not heard if you use it whole, sliced, diced or other, lol. But I've heard it all my life.

The wood was used by native Americans for making bows. Settlers used it as a living fence...hence "hedge apple". Osage orange is fairly rare around here now because of so much development, but was quite common when I was young.

Ken must have Maclura pomifera on steroids in his area. Ours are just softball size, lol.

maybe i remember them in the kids hands when they were smaller ... the kids i mean .. lol .. no scale in my memory .. lol ...

ken

“oh god no.. and if you happen to be under the tree it would probably knock you out..”

@ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5

I saw an Osage orange tree next to a heavily trafficed thuroughfare last week and wondered how, exactly, the homeowner had never had an issue with random cars or humans being damaged.

We gathered 100 year old osage fence posts in Osage County, OK when the Tall Grass Prarie was preparing for the bison release. The wood is super hard and flexible- great for bows. Great fence posts because they never rot. And the only harm a grass fire does to them is to char the outside. Turning a bowl is possible with a beautiful orange heartwood and char on the outside, but it dulls your tools fast.

Trimming branches, even small ones, on this 'Whiteshield' osage orange for me by hand is impossible. I have to have a chainsaw. If you look at mine above, it has been limbed up a bit. Here's the trunk:

Some say that if you put the fruit in your basement, it will drive out bugs. A few of them in a bowl make a nice fall display.

The same myth persists over here but is applied to conkers, the fruit of the Horse Chestnut. Experiments have shown no effect.

When i was a kid the boys in my neighborhood played conkers with the chestnuts i think they are all gone now.

Thanks for the link, arbordave. I knew about some of the other trees, but not about avocados. The pic w/the giant spider at the end is pretty scary. Here's a similar article on the megafauna & certain NA trees like osage orange. Mammoths, but also giant sloths:

http://www.americanforests.org/magazine/article/trees-that-miss-the-mammoths/

beng, that link doesn't seem to be working. Here's a different link to the same article that should work:

The Trees That Miss The Mammoths

Funny, I had looked up that article a couple months ago & it had worked. Anyway, looks like you found the article in pdf form -- thanks.

@arbordave (SE MI) What's even funnier is that I used @bengz6westmd's link yesterday right after they posted it, and it worked. Now it doesn't. Weird.