The Yelluw-wood, /Wm. is a small tree with smooth brown bark and delicate branches. It bears long pendulous clusters of white pea-like flowers thin sumll-seeded pods. The leaves hare seven to eleven broad leaflets. The tree grows wild only in Ken tucky. Tennessee, and North Caro lina. It is extensively planted in parks and home grounds, where it is called Virgilia. the generic; name given it by :Mich:lux. Occasionally it attains a height of fifty feet in cultivation.
The 'Honey Locust, Olcel triernenthos, is the handsomest of our pod-bearin• trees. It is known also as the Three-thorned Acacia.
In the summer tune its foliage is a feathery mass, of wonderful ness and grace. The leaves are once- and twice-compound, both sorts on the same tree. So line are the divisions and so flexible are their leaf-stalks that the light sifts easily throuult and for this reason. apparently. a Honey Locust tree is often leafy to its center. All summer the long slender pods add their velvety greenness to the various shades seen among. the leaves.
The flowers are small, greenish, and inconspicuous. like those of the Kentucky coffee tree. The tree gets its name from the honey-sweet pulp that fills the pods. and is sometimes eaten when soft and green.
In winter, the Honey Locust reveals its distinctive character. Its form is typically erect, strong, symmetrical. with its angled branches spreading far in horizontal planes. The trunk is but the
branches are comparatively As in other locusts, the winter buds are hidden, but the rich, dark color of the bark gives the tree a look of life and vigor. The three-pnmged thorns, which often beset the trunk and follow out to the utmost twigs, are modified branches that come out of buds set some distance above the nodes from which the leaves and flowers arise. They are the tree's strong defense enemies that \voold climb its trunk, or browse its twigs. These branch ing thorns give the Honey Locust an asperity of demeanor which is unusual among trees. The rigidity and voidness of its winter aspect are emphasized by the rattling of the long, dry pods which hang late on the leafless twigs. In winter they let go their hold and ) careen ing away over the SHOW and ice, their S-curve tempting every vagraiit breeze to give them a lift. Lodging at last, the pods decay, liberating the hard shiny seeds.
The tree soon gains a wide natural distribution once it is introduced into a new As an ornamental tree it has most of the good points of other pod-bearers. and one of their faults: like the common locust, it is late in getting its foliage and early in putting it off. The range of the Locust is from Ontario to Michigan, and south to Georgia and Texas. In cultivation the tree is found farther east.