COLUMN: Are Osage oranges native to Iowa?

THE NATURE OF THINGS COLUMN
By: 
Michele Olson
Jones County Naturalist

     I recently had the question asked of me “Are Osage orange trees native to Iowa?”

     My answer would be relative to how far back in the history of North America we would look. Relative to modern history the Osage orange is a reintroduced species not historically documented as present in Iowa at the time of European exploration, but rather brought and intentionally planted by humans in the late 1800s. Fossil records indicate that, Maclura pomifera, Osage orange trees were found in North America all the way north to Ontario.

     You might be wondering what an Osage orange tree is. Although found in Iowa, many urban and town dwellers may have never encountered a live Osage orange tree. Before the invention of barbed wire, they were valued for their usefulness as living fences and were planted as such across the United States. Many Osage orange trees surviving in Iowa today are the remnants of these old rural living fences.

     Osage orange trees were used for their hard, heavy, rot resistant wood valuable in the construction of wagon wheel rims and hubs, chuck wagons, cattle yokes, railroad ties, bridge pilings, fence posts, house foundation blocks, telephone poles, and tool handles.

     Although you may have never encountered a living tree I bet you have witnessed the fruit which appear in local grocery stores, farmer’s markets, and local specialty shops in autumn. These large green, lumpy, bumpy fruits are not edible to humans but have been touted through folklore as serving as spider and insect detractors and festive cool looking autumn décor. Other names, depending on the region or area you are from, for these fruits include hedge apple, horse apple, and mock orange.

     The French word given to this tree was bois d’arc, meaning bow wood. Native Americans used the wood from the Osage orange trees to make highly desired bows, propagated these trees near their village sites, and used them in their trade relations throughout North America. Early European explorers noted the trees natural range limited to western Arkansas, Oklahoma, and parts of east Texas. The tree was given the name Osage orange after the name of the tribe from whom explorer Meriwether Lewis obtained young trees.

     Osage orange trees are more than just odd trees forgotten in our old fence rows; they are remnants of a time when mammoths, mastodons, giant sloths, horses, and camels roamed the Pleistocene landscape of Iowa and North America. They are a tree in a land without their natural extinct animal dispersers joining the ranks of the Kentucky coffee tree, honey locusts, pawpaws, and persimmons.

     In today’s North America the only animals noted to truly eat and disperse Osage orange fruits are horses and mules. The large, now-extinct megafauna of North America no longer munch their way across the landscape. Trees like the Osage orange with a dispersal method and protective armor meant for large mobile mouths now find their fruit rotting under their protective branches only dispersed incidentally or through the aid of human hands.

     Check out the trees living near you!  You never know what story they may hold.  Read “The Trees That Miss The Mammoths”, by Whit Bronaugh, or “The Enduring Osage Orange”, by Jim Grace, for more eye-opening history of the Osage orange tree.

     For tree identification and visual aid visit the ISU Extension website page at   https://naturalresources.extension.iastate.edu/forestry/iowa_trees/trees/osage_orange.html.

 

Category:

Subscriber Login