Nature Bulletin No. 207-A   November 20, 1965
Forest Preserve District of Cook County
Seymour Simon, President
Roland F. Eisenbeis, Supt. of Conservation

****:OSAGE ORANGE

Ever since primitive man decided that it was easier to raise his own 
meat than to go out and hunt wild game, there have been herdsmen 
and farmers who have had to build fences. Fence building and fence 
repairing, whether they be stone walls, living thorn hedges, rail fences, 
barbed wire or electric fences, are never-ending jobs for farmers.

About the time young Abraham Lincoln was splitting oak and walnut 
logs into rails for "worm" fences, middle western farmers began to 
hear of a small thorny tree, native to the Arkansas River region, which 
could be grown in dense hedges to enclose horses, cattle, sheep and 
hogs. Because the Osage (Wazhazhe or "war people") Indians 
inhabited that region, it was called the Osage Orange.

It is a medium-sized tree occasionally reaching 50 feet in height and 
two feet in diameter, with glossy simple leaves about twice as long as 
broad. The twigs are orange-brown in color and armed with many 
straight stout sharp thorns about three-quarters of an inch long. The 
large wrinkled orange-like green fruit, four or five inches in diameter, 
as well as the leaves and twigs, contain a milky juice which is quite 
bitter. These fruits, heavy and hard, are commonly known as "hedge 
apples" and used by boys as missiles for mimic warfare and other 
purposes. They are not edible. It is the only tree of its kind in the 
world, although related distantly to the mulberries and figs. Silk 
worms feed on its leaves as readily as on those of the mulberry. Some 
of these trees have yellowish male flowers bearing pollen which is 
carried by bees to other trees with greenish female flower-heads that 
produce the " oranges" .

Osage orange grows well on many kinds of soil throughout most of the 
United States. Sprouts from roots, or shoots grown from seed or 
cuttings in nurseries, are planted in one or two rows several inches 
apart where a hedge fence is wanted. These are trimmed once or twice 
a year to form a dense hedge about 4 feet high and 2 feet wide. 
Sometimes the "whips" or sprouts are planted on an angle to create an 
inter-woven lattice-like living fence.

If farmers neglect the trimming, the hedges grow rapidly to become 
havens for birds and other wildlife. However, the trees so produced are 
valuable as posts for wire fences because osage orange is more durable 
in the soil than any other wood and many such fences have lasted 
more than 50 years without a single rotten post. Since they occupy and 
shade too much valuable cropland, most such overgrown hedges have 
been removed in recent years.

The wood, exceedingly heavy, hard and strong, shrinks but little as it 
dries and was formerly used to make the felloes and hubs of wagon 
wheels. A yellow dye can be extracted from the bright orange wood 
and roots for tanning and coloring leather. The Osage Indians used the 
wood to make war clubs and bows, and the tree was called bois d'arc 
(wood of the bow) by the early French explorers. Without doubt, it is 
the finest wood for bows in all the world. Archery fans scour the 
country for osage orange trees large enough and straight enough for 
bows. Perhaps one in a hundred, or a thousand, is suitable. It is 
carefully sawed into staves which are varnished and seasoned for 
several years before the wood is ready to be fashioned into a bow. In 
1800 or thereabouts, historians mention that the Osage Indians valued 
such a bow equal to a horse and a blanket.

Today, 150 years later, it is worth the same.