Raffi at 22:31, 22 December 2009

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Murali.lalitha at 09:43, 21 December 2009

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Murali.lalitha at 09:38, 21 December 2009

2009-12-21T09:38:04Z

Raffi at 11:37, 4 April 2007

2007-04-04T11:37:54Z

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{{Taxobox
| color = lightgreen
| name = Osage-orange
| image = Maclura pomifera2.jpg
| image_width = 250px
| image_caption = Osage-orange foliage and fruit
| regnum = [[Plant]]ae
| divisio = [[Flowering plant|Magnoliophyta]]
| classis = [[Magnoliopsida]]
| ordo = [[Rosales]]
| familia = [[Moraceae]]
| genus = ''Maclura''
| species = '''''M. pomifera'''''
| binomial = ''Maclura pomifera''
| binomial_authority = ([[Constantine Samuel Rafinesque|Raf.]]) Schneid.
}}

The '''Osage-orange''' (''Maclura pomifera'') is a [[plant]] in the [[mulberry]] family [[Moraceae]]. It is also known as '''Osage-apple''', '''mock orange''', '''hedge-apple''', '''horse-apple''', '''hedge ball''', '''bois d'arc''', '''bodark''' (mainly in [[Oklahoma]] and [[Texas]]), and '''bow wood'''. Common slang terms for it include '''monkey brain''', '''monkey ball''', '''monkey orange''', and '''brain fruit''' due to its brainlike appearance.

The species is [[Plant sexuality|dioeceous]], with male and female [[flower]]s on different plants. It is a small [[deciduous]] [[tree]] or large [[shrub]], typically growing to 8-15 m tall. The [[fruit]], a ''syncarp'' of [[achene]]s, is roughly spherical, but bumpy, and 7-15 cm in diameter, and it is filled with a sticky white [[Latex (rubber)|latex]] sap. In fall, its color turns a bright yellow-green and it has a faint odor similar to that of [[orange (fruit)|oranges]].<ref>Mabberley, D.J. 1987. ''The Plant Book. A portable dictionary of the higher plants''. [[Cambridge University Press]], Cambridge. 706 p. ISBN 0-521-34060-8.</ref>

''Maclura pomifera'' is the sole surviving member of the genus ''Maclura''—of its many relatives from past geologic eras, only fossils remain. It is also, however, a member of the family ''Moraceae'', which encompasses the [[Mulberry|mulberries]] and the [[Ficus|figs]], as well as a large number of tropical and semitropical trees. <ref>Dave Wayman, [http://www.motherearthnews.com/Organic-Gardening/1985-03-01/All-About-the-Osage-Orange.aspx "All About the Osage Orange"] [[Mother Earth News]] (March/April 1985)</ref>

The fruits have a pleasant and mild odor, but are inedible for the most part. Although not strongly poisonous, eating it may cause vomiting. The fruits are sometimes torn apart by [[squirrels]] to get at the seeds, but few other native animals make use of it as a food source. This is unusual, as most large fleshy fruits serve the function of [[seed|seed dispersal]], accomplished by their consumption by large animals. One recent [[hypothesis]] is that the Osage-orange fruit was eaten by a giant [[ground sloth]] that became [[extinct]] shortly after the first human settlement of North America. Other extinct [[Pleistocene megafauna]], like the [[mammoth]], [[mastodon]] and [[gomphothere]] may have fed on the fruit and aided in seed dispersal.<ref>Connie Barlow. Anachronistic Fruits and the Ghosts Who Haunt Them. ''[[Arnoldia]]'', vol. 61, no. 2 (2001)</ref> An [[equine]] species that went extinct at the same time also has been suggested as the plant's original dispersal mechanism because modern horses and other livestock will sometimes eat the fruit.<ref>Connie Barlow and Paul Martin, 2002. ''The Ghosts of Evolution: Nonsensical Fruit, Missing Partners, and Other Ecological Anachronisms'', which covers the now-extinct large herbivores with which fruits like Osage-orange and [[Avocado]] co-evolved in the Western Hemisphere.</ref>

==History==

The plant is native to an area in the central [[United States]] consisting of parts of [[Kansas]], [[Missouri]], [[Arkansas]], southeastern [[Oklahoma]], a narrow belt in eastern [[Texas]], and the extreme northwest corner of [[Louisiana]], but was not common anywhere. It was a curiosity when [[Meriwether Lewis]] sent some slips and cuttings to [[Thomas Jefferson|President Jefferson]] in March [[1804]]. The samples, donated by "Mr. [[Peter Choteau]], who resided the greater portion of his time for many years with the [[Osage Nation]] according to Lewis' letter, didn't take, but later the thorny Osage-orange was widely naturalized th
roughout the U.S.<ref>''[[Smithsonian (magazine)|Smithsonian]]'' March 2004, p. 35.</ref>

The trees picked up the name ''bois d'arc'', or "bow-wood", because early [[France|French]] settlers observed the wood being used for bow-making by [[Native Americans in the United States|Native Americans]]. The people of the [[Osage Nation]] "esteem the wood of this tree for the making of their bows, that they travel many hundred miles in quest of it," [[Meriwether Lewis]] was told in 1804.

==Uses==
[[Image:Osage_orange_1.jpg|right|244px||thumb|left|Osage-orange fruit]] The sharp-thorned trees were planted as cattle-deterring hedges before the introduction of [[barbed wire]]. The heavy, closely grained yellow-orange wood is very dense and is prized for tool handles, [[tree]] nails, fence posts, [[electrical insulators]], and other applications requiring a strong dimensionally-stable wood that withstands rot. Straight-grained osage timber (most is knotty and twisted) makes very good bows. In Arkansas, in the early 19th century, a good osage bow was worth a horse and a blanket. Additionally, a yellow-orange [[dye]] can be extracted from the wood, which can be used as a substitute for [[fustic]] and [[aniline]] dyes. When dried, the wood also makes excellent fire wood that burns long and hot.

Today, the fruit is sometimes used to deter spiders, cockroaches, [[boxelder bug]]s, crickets, fleas, and other insects. Using the fruit in this fashion, at least for spiders, has been debunked.[http://www.washington.edu/burkemuseum/spidermyth/myths/skineggs.html#hedgeapple] However, hedge apple ''oil'' has been shown to effectively repel cockroaches (University of Iowa, 2004), and the fruit may indeed have an effect of repelling cockroaches and boxelder bugs.

==References==
<references/>

==External links==
*[http://www.na.fs.fed.us/spfo/pubs/silvics_manual/volume_2/maclura/pomifera.htm Osage-orange factsheet] from the [[United States Forest Service]]
*[http://www.ipm.iastate.edu/ipm/hortnews/1997/10-10-1997/hedgeapple.html Facts and Myths Associated with "Hedge Apples"] from an [[Iowa State University]] website
*[http://www.cas.vanderbilt.edu/bioimages/species/frame/mapo.htm ''Maclura pomifera'' images at bioimages.vanderbilt.edu]
*[http://www.thegreatstory.org/anachronistic_fruits/index.html ''Anachronistic fruits'']

[[Category:Moraceae]]

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 {{SPlantbox
 |common_name=Osage-orange
 |Min ht metric=cm

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		+	\|common_name=Osage-orange
		+	\|Min ht metric=cm
		+	\|Temp Metric=°F
		+	\|jumpin=This is the plant information box - for information on light; water; zones; height; etc. If it is mostly empty you can help grow this page by clicking on the edit tab and filling in the blanks!
		+	\|image=Upload.png
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		+	}}
		+	{{Inc\|
		+	Maclura pomifera, Schneid. (M. aurantiaca, Nutt. Toxylon pomiferum, Raf.). Fig. 2292. Tree, sometimes to 60 ft., with furrowed dark orange-colored bark: branchlets light green, soon glabrous: spines 2-3 in. long: lvs. ovate to oblong-lanceolate, acuminate, soon becoming glabrous, lustrous above, 2-6 in. long: racemes of staminate fls. 1-1 ½ in. long; heads of pistillate fls. ¾ -l in. across: fr. subglobose, 4-6 in. across, ripening in autumn and soon falling. May, June. Ark. to Texas. S.S. 7:322 323. G.C. III. 16:693. G.M. 33:808, 809. V. 437. Var. inermis, Rehd. (M. aurantiaca var. inermis, Andre). A form with spineless branches. R.H. 1896, p. 33.
		+	}}
		+
	{{Taxobox		{{Taxobox
	\| color = lightgreen		\| color = lightgreen

Osage-orange - Revision history

Raffi at 22:31, 22 December 2009

Murali.lalitha at 09:43, 21 December 2009

Murali.lalitha at 09:38, 21 December 2009

Raffi at 11:37, 4 April 2007