TYPE:  Deciduous shade treeHEIGHT:  40 to 60 feetSPREAD:  40 feetFINAL SPACING:  Probably shouldn’t plant in most cases. [31], The Osage orange is commonly used as a tree row windbreak in prairie states, which gives it one of its colloquial names, "hedge apple". Horse apples, also called hedge apples or Osage Oranges, are inedible. Some historians believe that the high value this wood had to Native Americans throughout North America for the making of bows, along with its small natural range, contributed to the great wealth of the Spiroan Mississippian culture that controlled all the land in which these trees grew. They feature a hairy, four-lobed calyx; the four stamens are inserted opposite the lobes of calyx, on the margin of a thin disk. We've lived here for 10 years … While residents have been dumping the excess apple crop in the Pine Nuts, volunteers have been gathering them up. However, apple peels make a great treat for horses with metabolic issues. Milky sap is bright green, bright green leaves with yellow fall color and large lime green wrinkled fruit 4 to 6 inches in diameter that form in the fall. As a dioecious plant, the inconspicuous pistillate (female) and staminate (male) flowers are found on different trees. Schneid.) Toxic Principles: Cyanogenic glycosides. The fruit or horse apples have been historically used to repel cockroaches and fleas. It is a member of the mulberry family, Moraceae. In landscape situations bois d’arc generally should be removed to favor more desirable plants. The horse apples form on the female plants only.FLOWERS AND FRUIT:  The insignificant flowers form in the spring from April to June. Harvard, "The Osage Orange Tree: Useful and Historically Significant", Anachronistic Fruits and the Ghosts Who Haunt Them, https://www.wood-database.com/osage-orange/, Southern Research Station (www.srs.fs.fed.us), "Facts and Myths Associated with "Hedge Apples, "HPLC Determination of Isoflavone Levels in Osage Orange from the United States Midwest and South", "Hedgerows no match for bulldozers in postwar years". Palmer and Fowler's Fieldbook of Natural History 2nd edition rates Osage orange wood as being at least twice as hard and strong as white oak (Quercus alba). [6], The fruits are consumed by black-tailed deer in Texas and fox squirrels in the Midwest, who drop them to crack open. Can also be grown from the fruit. [18] The wood is heavy, hard, strong, and flexible, capable of receiving a fine polish and very durable in contact with the ground. According to Lewis's letter, the samples were donated by "Mr. Peter Choteau, who resided the greater portion of his time for many years with the Osage Nation." In the springtime, emerging leaves may taste fresher to your horse than a dry hay bale. The distinctive fruit, a multiple fruit, is roughly spherical, bumpy, 8 to 15 centimetres (3–6 in) in diameter, and turns bright yellow-green in the fall. The plant has significant potential to invade unmanaged habitats.[3]. "[3], The Comanche also used this wood for their bows. Due to its l… The thorny trees do provide nesting and cover for wildlife. [23] An equine species that became extinct at the same time also has been suggested as the plant's original dispersal agent because modern horses and other livestock will sometimes eat the fruit. Apples aren't the only fruits with cyanogenic glycosides, either. Michael L. Ferro "A Cultural and Entomological Review of the Osage Orange (Maclura pomifera (Raf.) It is loaded with juice that is milky and acid. Although not poisonous, they may cause vomiting. This guide looks at the types of poisoning a horse can suffer from, spotting the signs of poisoning and what to do if you think your horse … It does not need very much water although deep soils are much better than shallow rocky soils. And they particularly don't like the fruit—the hedge apples. Very often a Hedge apple is incorrectly referred to as a Hedge Ball, Horse Apple, Green Brains, Monkey Balls or Mock Orange. The ovule is solitary. The root system seems shallow and not durable. The twigs are … mlkarel2010 is offline Quote Quick Reply The fruits secrete a sticky white latex when cut or damaged. The use of the hedge apples for insect control is one of the most enduring pest management home remedies. In others, falling branches or uprooted trees injure nearby horses. Both, as they are for humans. Problems include borers, shallow root system, wind damage, trees falling over in wet soils and other related immune system problems.PROPAGATION:  Very easy, can be grown from stem cuttings cut from branches or rather large limbs. [19] M. pomifera is cultivated in Italy, the former Yugoslavia, Romania, former USSR, and India. BARK:  The bark is brown to orange – usually deeply furrowed with rounded ridges often interlacing.FOLIAGE:  The leaves are broad and pointed with yellow fall color forming rather dense shade below the tree.CULTURE:  Bois d’ arc is curious in that it grows very fast and easily, almost weed like, but it is sometimes hard to keep healthy and alive in landscaping. Some people are allergic to the milky sap from the stems, leaves and fruit and develop dermatitis. [3] It was one of the primary trees used in President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's "Great Plains Shelterbelt" WPA project, which was launched in 1934 as an ambitious plan to modify weather and prevent soil erosion in the Great Plains states; by 1942 it resulted in the planting of 30,233 shelterbelts containing 220 million trees that stretched for 18,600 miles (29,900 km). It needs little to no fertilizer.PROBLEMS:  It is a very messy tree to try to have in a maintained garden. [34], The heavy, close-grained yellow-orange wood is dense and prized for tool handles, treenails, fence posts, and other applications requiring a strong, dimensionally stable wood that withstands rot. [37][38][39], Osage orange wood is more rot-resistant than most, making good fence posts. Cutting the apple in half makes it more effective. The belief about the use of hedge apples for insect control is widespread and persistent. I have received several reports that bois 'd arc fruit (horse apples) do in fact repel roaches and other pests. [10][28] A neglected hedge will become fruit-bearing. 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 compound fruit is a syncarp of numerous small drupes, in which the carpels (ovaries) have grown together. Seeds, stems and wilting leaves are toxic … "Heating With Wood: Species Characteristics and Volumes", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Maclura_pomifera&oldid=1000055265, Trees of the Great Lakes region (North America), Plants used in traditional Native American medicine, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 13 January 2021, at 09:36. You can often see bois d’ arc leaning over in landscape situations because the root system has failed. Acute Aflatoxin Poisoning 1. Rough hair coat 4. Bloody feces 7. Staminate flowers are pale green, small, and arranged in racemes borne on long, slender, drooping peduncles developed from the axils of crowded leaves on the spur-like branchlets of the previous year. [32] The sharp-thorned trees were also planted as cattle-deterring hedges before the introduction of barbed wire and afterward became an important source of fence posts. Dried citrus pulp (the leftover material from juice production) is a common ingredient in livestock feed and can be used in horse … Yellowing of the mucous membranes (jaundice) 6. [10], American settlers used the Osage orange (i.e. Diarrhea 6. Bleeding from the nose 8. It favors stream bottoms and low areas and can become a weedy invader of disturbed land. Horses don’t alway stop when they should, especially when it comes to the fruit. [3][35] Although its wood is commonly knotty and twisted, straight-grained Osage orange timber makes good bows, as used by Native Americans. (Note: This referred to Pierre Chouteau, a fur trader from Saint Louis.) Apple. However, the naturally occurring concentrations of these compounds in the fruit are too low to make the fruit an effective insect repellent. Hedge apples are not an important source of food for wildlife as most birds and animals find the fruit unpalatable. They all contain a glycoalkaloid called solanine in the leaves, shoots, and unripe (green) berries. Death Chronic Aflatoxin Poisoning 1. Learn to identify these plants in your pastures and yards and be sure to remove them as soon as possible to keep your horses safe. It is a curious thing that the root system is so weak on a tree that has such iron like wood. It's interesting that squirrels certainly aren't repelled by them. [26] Large animals such as livestock, which typically would consume fruits and disperse seeds, mainly ignore the fruit. [25][41][42] In 2004, the EPA insisted that a website selling M. pomifera fruits online remove any mention of their supposed repellent properties as false advertising. However, Hedge apples have suffocated livestock by lodging in their esophagus. Apples are easy to cultivate and tailor to certain tastes because of their resilient genetic diversity. The best fitting model for syncarp size evolution indicated an increase in both syncarp size and the rate of syncarp size evolution in the Osage orange lineage. Branches contain a yellow pith, and are armed with stout, straight, axillary spines. [20] Another historic tree is located on the grounds of Fort Harrod, a Kentucky pioneer settlement in Harrodsburg, Kentucky. Formation of hematomas beneath the skin [3] John Bradbury, a Scottish botanist who had traveled the interior United States extensively in the early 19th century, reported that a bow made of Osage timber could be traded for a horse and a blanket. [10] Meriwether Lewis sent some slips and cuttings of the curiosity to President Jefferson in March 1804. In this case, an apple a day will not keep the vet away. Because horses are trickle feeders and graze for the majority of the time they are awake, on rare occasions they can eat something poisonous. If apples were toxic there would be an awful lot of dead horses around not to mention me. For certain horses, even non-toxic treats can have a negative affect on health. Those cuttings did not survive. "Seed Dispersal in Osage Orange (Maclura pomifera) by Squirrels (Sciurus spp.)." IDENTIFICATION INFORMATION:  Male and female trees grow to about 50 feet in height and have strong spines on the stems. [3] A disjunct population also occurred in the Chisos Mountains of Texas. Convulsions 12. Bois d’ Arc does better in deep soils with more moisture than the very shallow rocky soils. At present, florists use the fruits of M. pomifera for decorative purposes. There are certain circumstances in which apples are not good for your horse. Bois D’ Arc is native to Oklahoma, Louisiana, Missouri, and Texas and plentiful throughout the Red River Valley. Horses can acquire a taste for them, and some eat the whole fruit, peel included. These factors will typically ensure that too much of the plant is not eaten. Bois d’ arc reaches its largest size in the Red River and Trinity River Valleys in northern Texas. Cattle can choke on them. Pistillate flowers are borne in a dense spherical many-flowered head which appears on a short stout peduncle from the axils of the current year's growth. "hedge apple") as a hedge to exclude free-range livestock from vegetable gardens and corn fields. Squirrels and chipmunks love hedge apples; humans do not, but they're not poisonous. Ataxia (loss of coordination) 9. In such a situation, it is imperative that the intake of … [43], "Bois d'arc" redirects here. These common weeds, trees, plants, and shrubs, shown below, are toxic to horses and ponies. They are the perfect size to become lodged in the equine esophagus. [14], The trees were named bois d'arc (or "bow-wood"),[3] by early French settlers who observed the wood being used for war clubs and bow-making by Native Americans. There are no harsh chemicals that are poisonous to dogs, as with other products. [10] Meriwether Lewis was told that the people of the Osage Nation, "So much … esteem the wood of this tree for the purpose of making their bows, that they travel many hundreds of miles in quest of it. Horses that are obese, prone to founder, and those who suffer from insulin resistance need to have their diets tightly restricted in terms of sugar and starch intake. Horses love apples, but too many can make them sick and even result in death. It commonly grows 30 to 40 feet tall, occasionally as tall as 50 to 60 feet. Large chunks of the tree will often die and borers frequently attack the iron-like wood causing further problems. "[15] The trees are also known as "bodark," "bodarc," or "bodock" trees, most likely originating as a transliteration or corruption of "bois d'arc. [6] The seeds are oblong. Leaves are arranged alternately in a slender growing shoot 90 to 120 centimetres (3–4 ft) long. Each small drupe is oblong, compressed and rounded; they contain a milky latex which oozes when the fruit is damaged or cut. Typically, horses would need to consume a cup of seeds to feel toxic effects (that's a lot of apples!). [11][3][12][13] 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". 2 (2001): 14-21. The fruit is also toxic until it has ripened. [6], Fruit burrowed into by animal eating seeds, Osage orange's pre-Columbian range was largely restricted to a small area in what is now the United States, namely the Red River drainage of Oklahoma, Texas, and Arkansas, as well as the Blackland Prairies and post oak savannas. [10] A thornless male cultivar of the species exists and is vegetatively reproduced for ornamental use. [21], Because of the limited original range and lack of obvious effective means of propagation, the Osage orange is considered to be an evolutionary anachronism, wherein one or more now extinct Pleistocene megafauna evolutionary partners, such as the giant ground sloth, mammoth, mastodon or gomphothere, fed on the fruit and aided in seed dispersal. The fruit can be crushed and the seed after drying can be stratified by soaking in water for 30 days and then planted in the spring. Peaches, apricots, cherry pits, almonds, even lima beans---they've all got 'em. But the gravest dangers arise with the few tree species that are toxic enough to sicken or kill horses. Despite the name "Osage orange",[3] it is not related to the orange. [24], The fruit is not poisonous to humans or livestock, but is not preferred by them,[25] because it is mostly inedible due to a large size (about the diameter of a softball) and hard, dry texture. [16] They liked the wood because it was strong, flexible and durable,[3] and the bush/tree was common along river bottoms of the Comanchería. Toxic to Dogs, Toxic to Cats, Toxic to Horses. In autumn they turn bright yellow. Scientific studies have found that extracts of Osage orange do repel several insect species. Each flower has a hairy four-lobed calyx with thick, concave lobes that invest the ovary and enclose the fruit. It has a specific gravity of 0.7736 or 773.6 kg/m3 (48.29 lb/cu ft). [27], Maclura pomifera prefers a deep and fertile soil, but is hardy over most of the contiguous United States, where it is used as a hedge. [31] The moisture content of fresh fruits is about 80%. Maclura pomifera, commonly known as the Osage orange, horse apple, hedge, or hedge apple tree is a small deciduous tree or large shrub, typically growing to 8 to 15 metres (30–50 ft) tall. The thorny Osage orange tree was widely naturalized throughout the United States until this usage was superseded by the invention of barbwire in 1874. Although insect deterrent compounds have been extracted from hedge apples in laboratory studies, these do not provide a logical explanation about why hedge apples would work as claimed. Severe depression 2. The distinctive fruit, a multiple fruit, is roughly spherical, bumpy, 8 to 15 centimetres (3–6 in) in diameter, and turns bright yellow-green in the fall. It is remarkably free from insect predators and fungal diseases. The mayapple plant tastes bitter and will immediately cause irritation. Horses actually do eat the fruit, which has caused deaths due to lodging in the animal’s throat. [29], Osajin and pomiferin are isoflavones present in the wood and fruit in an approximately 1:2 ratio by weight, and in turn comprise 4–6% of the weight of dry fruit and wood samples. Muscle spasms 11. The fruit is the large horse apple that looks a little bit like a lime green brain 4 to 6 inches in diameter. Although the flowering is dioecious, the pistillate tree when isolated will still bear large oranges, perfect to the sight but lacking the seeds. But, during drought, when pasture grass is sparse, your horse might snack on the trees despite the taste. The invention of barbed wire reportedly came from someone seeing the thorns on the bois d’ arc fencerows. The wood of M. pomifera is golden to bright yellow but fades to medium brown with ultraviolet light exposure. Jaundice 5. Apples are delicious, nutritious treats for horses, and people, but contain a lot of sugars. The poison is a volatile alkaloid, coniine, found in the foliage all season and in the seeds in late summer. Horses and other livestock will sometimes eat the fruit. The bark of the trunk has been used for tanning leather. [3] They are generally set up green because the dried wood is too hard to reliably accept the staples used to attach the fencing to the posts. Whilst nitrates aren’t too toxic, they can be converted to nitrites by plants or by the horse. For this reason, most fruits are off-limits to these horses. Placement of hedge apples around the foundation or inside the basement is claimed to provide relief from cockroaches, spiders, boxelder bugs, crickets and other pests. Leaves, shoots, and people, but idk, it is a volatile alkaloid, coniine, in! The few tree species that are toxic to dogs, toxic to horses should they ingest all or portion... 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