Let's
Get
Down
To
It!
Hedge Apple's Pithy Core
Osage Orange or Hedge Apple
Maclura pomifera
The Adventure
Currently, I am on a two-person tour for National Theater For Children , reaching an average of 1000 kids a day with the message of energy conservation. We are playing to the packed, elementary school cafegymatoriums of Tennessee for the next 8 weeks, so our first trees will be from TN! Feel free to read this blog with a southern drawl, preferably sounding like Matthew McConaughey...then sending me the sound clip.
The Osage Orange Tree (also called Bodock, Bodarc and Hedge Apple) I found at the Nashville Zoo surprised me! I don't think I would have noticed the tree at all - tucked back behind a stand of bamboo - but the wrinkly, greenish yellow, brain-looking Hedge Apples were practically a hazard along the path. Looking up to find the tree, the heavy, soft-ball sized fruits weight the branches to drooping before they fall (nice, big thud). Having a snowball-esque Osage Orange fight was, sadly, my first thought. They feel spongy enough to bounce, but they don't bounce well. Tearing the fruit open is a little tough because it is fibrous and stringy - and I got this milky juice all over my hands - which (I found out later) can give you an itchy rash. It has a faint Orange smell to it, hence the name.
The seeds (which are the only edible part of the tree, though the rest is not poisonous) are covered in a slippery husk. If you are so inclined , you can dig them out of the spongy mess, un-husk and feast away.
Crawling behind the bamboo, I found branches with short thorns and oval-shaped leaves that come to a sharp point. Some leaves had changed to yellow. I didn't collect any leaves for my journal because zoo people were giving me the stink-eye. It's a totally climbable tree, but the thorns are really tough - so watch out.
Where does Osage Orange come from?
It's native to North Texas, Southeast Oklahoma and Arkansas - named after the Osage Indians there. Now you can a find it all over the eastern US, even in the Africa section of the Nashville Zoo!
A little History of Use
Feel free to share your own Osage Orange Adventure. Has anyone tasted the seeds? What happens if you boil them? Does anyone have a Hedge Apple fence I could visit? Want to have an apple war?
Here we are - the end of the beginning of our online tree adventures...
Make like a tree.
Get
Down
To
It!
Hedge Apple's Pithy Core
Osage Orange or Hedge Apple
The Adventure
Currently, I am on a two-person tour for National Theater For Children , reaching an average of 1000 kids a day with the message of energy conservation. We are playing to the packed, elementary school cafegymatoriums of Tennessee for the next 8 weeks, so our first trees will be from TN! Feel free to read this blog with a southern drawl, preferably sounding like Matthew McConaughey...then sending me the sound clip.
The Osage Orange Tree (also called Bodock, Bodarc and Hedge Apple) I found at the Nashville Zoo surprised me! I don't think I would have noticed the tree at all - tucked back behind a stand of bamboo - but the wrinkly, greenish yellow, brain-looking Hedge Apples were practically a hazard along the path. Looking up to find the tree, the heavy, soft-ball sized fruits weight the branches to drooping before they fall (nice, big thud). Having a snowball-esque Osage Orange fight was, sadly, my first thought. They feel spongy enough to bounce, but they don't bounce well. Tearing the fruit open is a little tough because it is fibrous and stringy - and I got this milky juice all over my hands - which (I found out later) can give you an itchy rash. It has a faint Orange smell to it, hence the name.
The seeds (which are the only edible part of the tree, though the rest is not poisonous) are covered in a slippery husk. If you are so inclined , you can dig them out of the spongy mess, un-husk and feast away.
Crawling behind the bamboo, I found branches with short thorns and oval-shaped leaves that come to a sharp point. Some leaves had changed to yellow. I didn't collect any leaves for my journal because zoo people were giving me the stink-eye. It's a totally climbable tree, but the thorns are really tough - so watch out.
Where does Osage Orange come from?
It's native to North Texas, Southeast Oklahoma and Arkansas - named after the Osage Indians there. Now you can a find it all over the eastern US, even in the Africa section of the Nashville Zoo!
A little History of Use
- It was planted to make cattle fences before the barbed wire boom in 1874 - http://www.barbwiremuseum.com/barbedwirehistory.htm. It was pruned "Horse High, Bull Strong and Hog Tight" to keep horses from jumping over, bulls from trudging through, and hogs from wiggling in.
- The Hedge Apples are thought to be an insect, spider and mouse repellent if left in an area while still green. Many people swear by them.
- It has been used for primitive archery bows because of it's strength, and the colloquial names Bodock or Bodarc come from the French bois d'arc, meaning bow.
- The dried wood yields the highest BTUs when burned as firewood. It's "the closest to a piece of coal as you can get".
- The wood is being used to make musical instruments, artwork and fancy pens because of its pretty yellow color.
- Boiling the wood chips yields yellow dye.
- The Bark yields Tannin.
- Burning the Hedge Apples makes all kinds of sparks and crackles - like a little fireworks display.
- Osage Oranges are in the Mulberry Family (Moraceae) . Most of them have milky sap like the Hedge Apple, but the bumelias and the Hedge Apple are the only thorny trees with milky sap in the Eastern US.
- It is dioecius (having male and female plants), and you only get the Hedge Apples on the female tree.
- The Bark is Orange brown with tight furrows. I am kicking myself for not taking a picture of it.
- The Hedge Apples have a lot of great nicknames that are incorrect. Here are the ones I could find: Hedge Balls, Horse Balls, Green Brains, Monkey Balls and Mock Orange. In light of these names, I have adopted a new name for my sister - http://experimentalcookery.blogspot.com/
Feel free to share your own Osage Orange Adventure. Has anyone tasted the seeds? What happens if you boil them? Does anyone have a Hedge Apple fence I could visit? Want to have an apple war?
Here we are - the end of the beginning of our online tree adventures...
Make like a tree.