Locust

=Habitat and Range.=--In its native habitat growing upon mountain

slopes, along the borders of forests, in rich soils.



Naturalized from Nova Scotia to Ontario.



Maine,--thoroughly at home, forming wooded banks along streams; New

Hampshire,--abundant enough to be reckoned among the valuable timber

trees; Vermont,--escaped from cultivation in many places; Massachusetts,

Rhode Island, and C nnecticut,--common in patches and thickets and along

the roadsides and fences.



Native from southern Pennsylvania along the mountains to Georgia;

west to Iowa and southward.



=Habit.=--Mostly a small tree, 20-35 feet high, under favorable

conditions reaching a height of 50-75 feet; trunk diameter 8 inches to 2

1/2 feet; lower branches thrown out horizontally or at a broad angle,

forming a few-branched, spreading top, clothed with a tender green,

delicate, tremulous foliage, and distinguished in early June by loose,

pendulous clusters of white fragrant flowers.



=Bark.=--Bark of trunk dark, rough and seamy even in young trees, and

armed with stout prickles which disappear as the tree matures; in old

trees coarsely, deeply, and firmly ridged, not flaky; larger branches a

dull brown, rough; branchlets grayish-brown, armed with prickles;

season's shoots green, more or less rough-dotted, thin, and often

striped.



=Winter Buds and Leaves.=--Winter buds minute, partially sunken within

the leaf-scar. Leaves pinnately compound, alternate; petiole swollen at

the base, covering bud of the next season; often with spines in the

place of stipules; leaflets 7-21, opposite or scattered, 3/4-1-1/4

inches long, about half as wide, light green; outline ovate or

oval-oblong; apex round or obtuse, tipped with a minute point; base

truncate, rounded, obtuse or acutish; distinctly short-stalked;

stipellate at first.



=Inflorescence.=--Late May or early June. Showy and abundant, in loose,

pendent, axillary racemes; calyx short, bell-shaped, 5-cleft, the two

upper segments mostly coherent; corolla shaped like a pea blossom, the

upper petal large, side petals obtuse and separate; style and stigma

simple.



=Fruit.=--A smooth, dark brown, flat pod, about 3 inches long,

containing several small brown flattish seeds, remaining on the tree

throughout the winter.



=Horticultural Value.=--Hardy throughout New England in all dry, sunny

situations, of rapid growth, spreading by underground stems, ordinarily

short-lived and subject to serious injury by the attacks of borers.

Occasionally procurable in large quantities at a low rate. In Europe

there are many horticultural forms, a few of which are occasionally

offered in American nurseries. The type is propagated from seed, the

forms by grafting.






1. Winter buds.

2. Flowering branch.

3. Flower with corolla removed.

4. Fruiting branch.





=Robinia viscosa, Vent.=