Talking Trees with Davey Tree
Your trees and landscapes require year-round care, and The Davey Tree Expert Company is here to help provide you with expert advice. Join our professional Davey arborists and gardening-expert host Doug Oster to learn all about caring for your properties. We'll talk about introduced pests, seasonal tree care, tree diseases, arborists' favorite trees, how to help your trees thrive and everything in between. Tune in every Thursday because here at the Talking Trees Podcast, we know trees are the answer.
Talking Trees with Davey Tree
Oh, Osage Orange Tree: You Either Love It or Hate It
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Have you wondered what tree grows those strange green, brain-like balls? Lou Meyer from Davey's Mid-Atlantic regions returns for our species series to talk about the Osage Orange tree, a very controversial and unique tree.
To find your local Davey office, check out our find a local office page to search by zip code.
To hear more from Lou Meyer, please read/watch:
- Tree Tips with Lou Meyer
- Tree Watering Tips with Lou Meyer
- Kentucky Coffee Tree: Why Arborists Love This Tree
- Food from Trees! - Pies, Syrups, Liqueur and More
Connect with Davey Tree on social media:
Twitter: @DaveyTree
Facebook: @DaveyTree
Instagram: @daveytree
YouTube: The Davey Tree Expert Company
LinkedIn: The Davey Tree Expert Company
Connect with Doug Oster at www.dougoster.com.
Connect with us: podcasts@davey.com.
Welcome To Talking Trees
SPEAKER_01Welcome to the Deby Tree Expert Company's podcast, Talking Trees. I'm your host, Doug Oester. Each week, our expert arborists share advice on seasonal tree care, how to make your trees thrive, arborists' favorite trees, and much, much more. Tune in every Thursday to learn more because here at the Talking Trees Podcast, we know trees are the answer.
Meeting The Osage Orange
SPEAKER_01Well, it's our friend Lou Meyer. He is an arborist from the Baltimore area, working in the Mid-Atlantic region for the Davy Tree Expert Company. Well, we have worked a lot together on different uh podcasts and projects, and this is one of the continuing series on species. And Lou, I'm thrilled to be talking about Osage Orange.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's one of my all-time favorites. Uh, people love and hate the tree, usually both together. I mean, they're they're really cool species, they're they're fascinating in their uniqueness. Uh, but if you park under them, you're gonna be pretty upset.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that fruit, if it's a fruit, uh goes back to my childhood where I lived somewhere until I was seven in Ohio, and that was the way that we I don't know what you would say, those things hurt.
SPEAKER_00They are convenient projectiles
Fruit Hazards And Street Tree Myths
SPEAKER_00for youngsters in the wild. Absolutely. So explain what that looks like. Yeah, so the Osage Orange, uh, one of its uh one of its most more common names is the monkey ball or the monkey brains. And you'll know this tree by the large four to five inch diameter ball of green uh knobbly fruit. So it looks like uh almost like cauliflower, like a green cauliflower, four to five inches in diameter. So about the size of a softball is is the size. When they fall, uh, they can hurt you, they're pretty big. And um, yeah, they're good projectiles, they'll roll down the street. Uh streets that have them planted streetside will have cars with dented hoods and and they'll smash windshields, but they'll definitely dent your hood and dent the roof of your car. And uh can be trip hazards too. You you step on one of these on a sidewalk and you're rolling your ankle. They're they're big, they're much bigger than a walnut.
SPEAKER_01So were they used as street trees?
Hedge Apple Fences Before Barbed Wire
SPEAKER_01Is that one of their uses?
SPEAKER_00I've seen them used as street trees. Uh, I don't know why. I can't figure that out, but you know what I think it is is that I don't think they were used as street trees. I think what they when I see them along streets, my thought is that they're used as hedgerows, or they used to be used as hedgerows. And one of the other common names, or not, yeah, one of the common names is hedge apple. Um, and the reason why they're used as hedgerows is because if you continually prune them short, they grow all these shoots, and the shoots will grow three to six feet per year, and you can coppice them, you can intertwine them. And so before uh barbed wire, or for a cheap and natural alternative barbed wire, you could put rows of these around your farm or your house or whatever. So when I see them as street trees, my initial thought is always, oh, there used to be a farm. These things delineated the edge of that field, and there was probably a walking path that turned into a gravel road that is now a paved road. You know, a lot of the roads that we drive on now, uh, most of them are planned in urban areas. But when you get into that suburban rural areas, a lot of those just followed footpaths and have now developed into these. So I think the ones that are street side are generally uh were were planted as hedgerows.
SPEAKER_01Is it a tree that you're planting or is it a tree that's just out there?
SPEAKER_00It's just out there. I'm sure there are native nurseries that sell some of them. You know, if I had a large property and had some space, I would definitely put a few in just because they're really cool trees. Um, they are a little aggressive in their spread, though. They they spread pretty quickly. Um, and in certain parts of the United States, they're considered invasives uh because of their aggressiveness. They're not native to most of the United States. I mean, they are native to the United States, but a very specific pocket. Uh, pre-Columbian era, these things only lived in East Texas, a little bit of southern Oklahoma, and that's about it. I mean, it was a tiny little pocket. But then once Native Americans started using them, I mean they they'd always used them, but um they started using them for bows. The the wood is wildly dense, it's a super strong, hard wood, and really good for bows, for like bows and arrows. And then once the settlers, the colonials started to uh understand what this thing was, it took off like wildfire uh when they wanted to hedge in their properties. I mean, you you plant a hedgerow of these things within five years, you can't get through it. Cows, pigs, sheep cannot get through these things. That's how thick they grow. So they're really popular. Like I said, up until oh late 1800s when barbed wire came along. These these were it, these were the fences. Cows, pigs, sheep. How about kids? Will keep kids out of my yard? You know, it will keep kids out of your yard. It's not a bad idea. I remember when I was in, I took landscape design classes at Cincinnati State Community College back in the day. And we would always talk about uh specific uses for specific plants. And this is one that would come up for areas on college campuses where you don't want like you get those cow paths where people leave the sidewalk and they just destroy the turf while they cut between two buildings instead of taking the slightly longer route around the sidewalk. That'd be a great place for a Osage Orange Hedgerows just to keep those college students from cutting through the quad where you're spending so much time getting the turf ready.
Invasive Reputation And Where It’s Native
SPEAKER_01When you say it's invasive, is it like underground runners, or what is or is it the seed from the giant fruit, or what is it that makes it invasive?
SPEAKER_00I think it's the prolific seeding and the shoot growth and the rapidness of it. Um and they just outcompete, you know, with for to be an invasive species, really what that means is that it outcompetes the native vegetation uh and therefore is taking up resources that native vegetation will be going after. So yeah, they just they they uh their range expands faster than the native vegetation in most places.
SPEAKER_01If I found one, would it be okay to put into my four acres of woodlands, or would that be the wrong thing to do because it does have that reputation of being invasive?
SPEAKER_00I think it would be okay personally. I've never seen these things like take off, they're not like calorie pear. Uh, they're not like um I'll pick any number of them, uh, tree of heaven. I don't see these things like going crazy and just showing up in random places. So I think you'd be okay with that.
SPEAKER_01I just want to see my grandkids throwing those things at each other. Remind me of my uh misspent youth.
SPEAKER_00Keep your first aid kit handy.
Names, History, And Early Records
SPEAKER_00I was gonna say the the Latin name is Maclura Pommifera, which is one of my all-time favorites, uh McLura. And if it sounds Scottish to you, it's by design. So William Maclure was a Scottish American geologist, Scottish-born American geologist who lived in the late 1700s, early 1800s. And so he was the one who got the tree named after him. Um the Osage from the from the common name Osage Orange comes from the Osage tribe, uh, Native American tribe. And Meriwether Lewis was the first one to really document this tree when Lewis and Clark uh crossed the United States. Um, and he actually sent back in the early 1800s, about 1804, he sent back clippings of Osage oranges to Thomas Jefferson and said, these are from the Osage people, and they developed this giant ball that looks like an orange, so Osage orange. Um yeah, so that that's it.
Size, Roots, Flowers, And Dioecious Traits
SPEAKER_00Uh it's a small to medium sized tree or a large shrub, depending on who you talk to. Uh, again, you know, if we wanted to do an episode on what's the difference between a tree and a shrub, we could probably get about half an episode in. It's a pretty in-depth conversation. For me, it's uh how thick does it grow at the base? That's kind of what becomes a shrub to me. Um, although that's a very non-scientific approach. It gets to be 40 to 65 foot tall. I mean, that's a that's a giant O. Say George, it's 65 foot tall. Usually it's in that 25 to 40 foot range. Very round, broad canopies. This isn't a straight, thin tree. These are really broad, and generally they start branching out right off the ground, not like ankle level, but almost waist high to chest high. These aren't like oak trees that have these giant crowns that you look up to. These things you're looking at a crown at eye level. Um, no matter how tall the tree is, it's thick at the base. Um, so they're they're they're big. The roots of it are super bright orange, which is also where it may have gotten that orange name from. Um, I've often on landscape sites or tree sites, I've thought that they are uh underground cable. They look like coax or uh coaxial cable or even a um like an orange extension cord that someone might bury from their house to their shed uh without permits. Not saying that I would ever do that, but maybe I have. Uh we all have. Um, but I I have hit these things thinking, oh my god, I'm gonna die. This is electric. And it's not, it's an Osage uh root that looks looks like a bright orange um extension cord. Hmm, that's cool. What about the flowers? Does it have good flowers? Or yeah, it does. They're kind of neat. Uh they're often overlooked because people are really looking for the giant fruit. Um, but yeah, they're like these green hairy globs. To me, they look a lot like a sweet gumball that is soft. So instead of having those hard spikes, they're real soft spikes that you can almost play with. Um, kind of like have you ever seen a cedar apple rust, which is a uh um a fungal disease that's shared between cedar trees and apple tree members. The the portion that's on the cedar trees is this orange glob with little strands coming out of it. Looks like something out of a uh horror story, uh, but these kind of look like that in a pretty way. It's a dioecious plant, so it's either a male or a female tree. So only the females get those flowers. Interestingly, the males will get the fruit though. So, and the females will also. It's just the male fruit won't have seeds inside, it's just a big green glob, whereas the female will have the big green glob with seeds inside. Uh, so like I said, the fruit is four to five inches in diameter. Um, if you cut it, it has kind of a milky ooze that comes out, and it gets real sticky too. Uh, so they're not really fun to get hit with or to play with.
SPEAKER_01Uh between the male and the female fruit, which one hurts worse? Um gotta be the female with the seeds in it, right? It's heavier.
SPEAKER_00Gotta be the female, a little more dense, a little more uh vindictive. No, I didn't say that. Uh no, just dense, yeah. Um, it's a it's a hard fruit. So uh yeah, I mean it's a it's a very unique
Champion Trees And Historic Landscapes
SPEAKER_00tree. Um, the largest one in the United States is in Charlotte County, Virginia. Patrick Henry had a farm there called the Red Hill Plantation. And this particular Osage, they think is about 325 years old, plus or minus 40 or 50 years. It's 105 inches in diameter. So four and a half feet off the ground, 105 inches. That's about nine feet. That's that's a big tree. So think about a nine-foot-long, I don't know, two by four. Lay that sideways. That's how wide this tree is, at four and a half feet off the ground. A tree sixty-five feet tall. It's got a spread of about 95 feet, and it is gorgeous. If you look up pictures of the Osage Orange at Red Hill Plantation, it's spectacular. It's I think it's behind the manor house on this wide open lawn. So it sits by it, it's not like hidden in a forest, it's it's in its glory, just spread out there. It's spectacular.
SPEAKER_01I think if a tree like that is like in your yard, the only way to deal with that fruit is just uh go underneath with a wheelbarrow and pick them up, but there's no other, there's no raking a big thing like that.
SPEAKER_00And they're too big to rake. You can't roll over. I've seen little wheelie pickup things for acorns and walnuts. Um, that will not work for these, they are far too large. Uh maybe, maybe the tennis ball baskets that you use for tennis that have the expandable uh bottoms where you just plop it down over a tennis ball and it kind of picks it up. I bet that would work for these, but they're so darn heavy, Doug. You get a basket full of these and it's gonna be 40 pounds. I mean, it's gonna be tough to lift.
Fruit Uses, Spider Tales, And Wood Power
SPEAKER_00So any any use for the fruit that you know of? You can eat it. Uh, you don't eat the flesh, it's pretty disgusting. Uh, but the seeds you can roast and they have a nutty flavor. So, yeah, you can use it for that. There's an old wife's tale that the fruit of the Osage orange repels spiders. So, people used to line the base of their houses with these to keep spiders away. I have zero evidence of that being true, uh, but it's a good thought. Uh, but no, it the the the best use is back to your childhood, just uh throwing them and rolling them and just having fun with them. They're a lot of fun. Um as far as the the wood goes, the tree itself, it does have a lot of uses. It's uh the wood's used for tool handles and fence posts. It's a the wood is twice as hard and strong as a white oak. So it is just super hard once it's dried. So hard that if you are using it for fence posts that you're gonna staple in the metal fence, you gotta use green wood because once it dries, staples won't even go into it. It's that hard. When we do work on Osage oranges, uh it's not a lot of fun. A, they've got thorns. So unless it's a thornless variety, these thorns hurt. So going up into these things, not good. Uh, also, the wood is super dense. So if it's dry at all, if you're cutting a dead limb off of one of these things, one that's dried, it it will eat up a chainsaw uh sharpness real quick. So you're you're constantly sharpening your saw. It's that dense of wood. Uh, it also has the highest heat value of North American wood. So once it is dried, you better split it quick before it hardens up. But once you split it when it's green, let it dry, it's the highest heat value of any North American wood. Do you come across them very often? From time to time, you do. Uh, generally, you know, in our line of work where we're mainly working in suburban urban areas, uh, you come across them in neighborhoods that were built on old farmland. And they'll be that county green space that's in between rows of homes that the developer had to leave. You'll find them in there. You'll also find them, much like Patrick Henry's uh estate there, Red Hill. You also will see them from time to time on historical sites. For instance, the Lincoln Summer Cottage, which is on the grounds of the Armed Forces Retirement Home in Northeast DC, uh, has a historical Osage Orange behind that summer residence. See, this was on a hillside that used to be in the country from Washington, D.C. So Lincoln would go up there in the summer uh when the city was super hot because DC's in a swamp, and it'd be cool, you'd have the the breeze up on the hill there. And it said that he wrote the Emancipation Proclamation under this Osage Orange, which is a gigantic tree. It's beautiful. There's no historical evidence to support this, it's just a story that's been passed down, but uh, but apparently he did. I know of another Osage on one of Washington's properties. George Washington had one called uh River Farm, just down the road from Mount Vernon and Alexandria, Virginia. And if you're looking at the main house to the left of that is a spectacular Osage. I want to say it's at least 80 inches in diameter, uh, 60 feet tall, beautiful spread on it. And uh it's it's just a spectacular version. So yeah, there either were farms used to be or on historical sites, which were probably also farms, but they weren't used as windbreaks. They were planted at that point as a uh a visual specimen.
SPEAKER_01And now when I think about my childhood, a neighborhood in the 60s, that probably was a farm at some point uh a hundred years before that, and they did the same thing, built the houses kind of around those, and that's where the Osage orange were, between kind of in a valley between you know, two roads. So that makes sense. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00They wanted to keep those cows and chickens and all the rest from cutting through.
SPEAKER_01Well, Lou, great stuff, great history on the tree, and boy, I'd love to have one in my forest. I'm gonna have to see if I can make that happen. But after all these species uh podcasts we've done together, that that's probably number five. I need to get into my forest.
SPEAKER_00I know. We're giving you all sorts of ideas for repopulating.
SPEAKER_01Thanks, Lou. Appreciate it. We'll talk to you next time. Doug, great talking to you.
Subscribe And Send Us Feedback
SPEAKER_01As you can tell, Lou and I enjoy talking to each other about trees. That Osage Orange brings back a lot of memories, as so many trees do. Now, do me a big favor. Tune in every Thursday to this podcast from the Davy Tree Expert Company. I'm your host, Doug Oester. I want you to subscribe to the podcast, and I also want to know what you think. You can send us an email to podcasts at Davey.com. That's P-O-D-C-A-S-T-S at D-A-V-E-Y.com. You can also click the link at the end of our show notes to text us a fan mail message. Your ideas could be on a future show. We would love to hear from you. As always, we'd like to remind you on the Talking Trees podcast, trees are the answer.