"Monkey brain"

Friday
Monkey brain is the colloquial name give to the fruit of the osage orange tree. I have blipped it once before, a couple of years back. That time it was on the ground, so this time I bring you the fruit still on the tree. The fruit is about the size of an orange and it is filled with a sticky white latex sap. It is largely inedible, though the seeds of the fruit are edible, and the fruit is sometimes torn apart by squirrels to get at the seeds. However, few other native animals make use of it as a food source, which is unusual, as most large fleshy fruit serves the function of seed dispersal by means of its consumption by large animals. Despite its name, it bears no relation to the citrus family, but rather is a member of the mulberry family. It originally grew as a native in Oklahoma, Texas, and Arkansas, but has been widely naturalized throughout the US and Ontario. The Osage-orange is commonly used as a tree row windbreak in prairie states, which gives it one of its colloquial names, "hedge apple". The heavy, close-grained yellow-orange wood is very dense and is prized for tool handles, treenails, fence posts, and other applications requiring a strong dimensionally stable wood that withstands rot. The trees also acquired the name bois d'arc, or "bow-wood", from early French settlers who observed the wood being used for war clubs and bow-making by Native Americans. Many modern bowyers assert the wood of the Osage-orange is superior even to English Yew for this purpose. I came across the osage orange while walking at Glenwood Gardens this afternoon - another beautiful warm afternoon.

One year ago: Lichen