Ugly, fruit: fleshy green ball the size of a orange, with a warty, bumpy surface sparsely covered with short hairs. When you break the ball open, it exudes a bitter, milky, sticky white sap that eventually turns black. The fruit is considered an aggregate fruit (like the mulberry) composed of many one-seeded drupes.
Very Hard. The hardest wood grown in the USA. Osage Orange wood is very hard and dense – great for tool handles, crafts, furniture, etc. It needs to be pre-drilled before screwed. Nailing is almost impossible. Osage orange weighs 48.22 pounds per cubic foot. On the Janka scale it's rated at Osage Orange 2,620 lbf.
Only female Osage orange trees bear fruit. Osage Orange is dioecious (have male and female plants), but the female plant (pistillate) will still produce fruit without pollination… it just lacks seeds! The trees take about 10 years to mature, and it is not really possible to determine gender of the tree before flowering and fruiting.
If planted close together, Osages would grow only to about 20 or 30 feethe Osage-orange is a small- to medium-sized tree. It commonly grows 30 to 40 feet tall, occasionally as tall as 50 to 60. settlers moving into the region found that the Osage-orange possessed several admirable qualities. It is a tough and durable tree, transplants easily, and tolerates poor soils, extreme heat, and strong winds. It also has no serious insect or disease problems
The wood is extremely hard, heavy, tough, and durable. It also shrinks or swells very little compared to the wood of other trees. The wood is used for fence posts, insulator pins, treenails, furniture, and archery bows. In fact, many archers consider the wood of the Osage-orange to be the world's finest wood for bows. (The name bodark is from the French bois d'arc mean "bow wood.") Also, a bright yellow dye can be extracted from the wood.
The belief about the use of hedge apples for insect control is widespread. it's claimed that placing hedge apples around will repel or control insects. A few years ago, Iowa State University toxicologists extracted compounds from hedge apples. When concentrated, these compounds were found to repel some spiders. Scientists also found that natural concentrations of these compounds in the fruit were too low to be an effective repellent.
Cancer, Skin Care the bark, fruits, and leaves all contain phytonutrients that are responsible for the tree’s proposed health benefits. Flavonoids found in the Osage tree – osajin and pomiferin; largely due to its antioxidant activity. There are some claims that hedge apple can cure cancer.
The wood's extraordinary ability to resist rot puts the tree in great demand Osage Orange resists rotting and insects – similar to cedar and black locust. An ideal wood for posts. Fence posts are put into the ground untreated and will still be there in 100 years.
Eatable but bitter and hard to get to seed from animails. Edible Seeds – reportedly tasts like raw sunflower seeds. Can be eated raw or roasted. They are difficult to obtain. The fruit is not normally edible. It is dried and put into capsules for injestion and the seed oil is used in makeup.
High BTU output and good for firewood.Osage Orange is fast growing and its wood has the highest BTU content of any North American wood. It is very dense, so it burns long and hot – like anthacite coal. It produces 30-32+ million BTU (British Thermal Units) per cord. It does spark (like Black Locust).
Midwest USA still uses for fence post, Osage will last for 100 years, It's mostly rot and insect proof.The heavy, close-grained yellow-orange wood is very dense and is prized for tool handles, treenails, fence posts, electrical insulators, and other applications requiring a strong stable wood that withstands rot.
The hubs and rims of the wheels on farm wagons, covered wagons and chuck wagons were made from Osage. Its great strength enabled it to bear heavy loads, while its flexibility made it relatively easy to bend into the circle of a wheel rim and also gave it the capacity to absorb shock without cracking or splitting
It is "horse high, bull strong and pig tight thousands of miles of Osage hedges are planted in the Midwest, East and South. The tree is hardy and adapted well to new areas, and today it can be found growing (mostly in hedges) from the Great Plains to the Eastern Seaboard, from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. The plant’s thorny stems and irregular branch pattern lend well to forming a thick hedge.
At 7 years of age, the typical Osage orange is about 8 feet tall and has a spread of around 6 feet. Growth rates slow only slightly as the tree matures. The U.S. Forest Service reported that 20-year old trees found in the Great Plains had grown an average of a foot per year. Many early settlers preferred to restrict Osage orange growth, keeping it trimmed to hedge height. Some trees are over 100 years old.
Osage Indians, who were known far and wide for making bows that were superior weapons for fighting and hunting. Osage (Maclura pomifera) is the only surviving member of the genus Maclura — of its many relatives from past eras, only fossils remain. It is also, however, a member of the family Moraceae, which incldes the mulberries and figs, as well as a large number of tropical and semitropical trees.
Osage Orange, Hedge Apple, Horse Apple, Monkey Ball, Bodark, Bodock, Bowwood, Maclura pomifera, Hedge Balls
Osage Orange are not related to oranges, but the fruit does have a citrus like ordor. The smell is very pleasing
The wood of the Osage orange tree is one of the hardest, strongest and densest of all the hardwoods. It's used for lots of Crafts
Osage Orange is a favorite dye source for creating a range of golden yellows, metallic and russet golds, as well as soft mossy greens. It has a yellow heartwood sometimes streaked with red that makes a bright and lightfast yellow. The soft earthy color results of mordant-free dye baths creating beautiful in color.
