The Mighty Osage Orange

Ever since moving to Kansas in late 2021, I’ve been fascinated by the giant green tennis balls scattered beneath some fairly scraggly-looking trees. I’d never seen anything like them. Upon researching, I’ve learned the tree, per Wikipedia, “Maclura pomifera, commonly known as the Osage orange, is a small deciduous tree or large shrub, native to the south-central United States“.

“American settlers used the Osage orange (i.e. “hedge apple”) as a hedge to exclude free-range livestock from vegetable gardens and corn fields. Under severe pruning, the hedge apple sprouted abundant adventitious shoots from its base; as these shoots grew, they became interwoven and formed a dense, thorny barrier hedge. The thorny Osage orange tree was widely naturalized throughout the United States until this usage was superseded by the invention of barbed wire in 1874. By providing a barrier that was “horse-high, bull-strong, and pig-tight”, Osage orange hedges provided the “crucial stop-gap measure for westward expansion until the introduction of barbed wire a few decades later”.

I’ve collected a few each year and tossed into the far reaches of my back yard in the hopes that someday I will have my own Hedge Apples! ~SueBee