HONEY LOCUST, the popular name of a North American tree (Gleditschia triacanthos), of the family Leguminosae, na tive to fertile soils from western Pennsylvania through Ohio and Ontario to Michigan and Minnesota and southward to Alabama and Texas, and also naturalized from cultivation eastward of this range. It reaches from 75 to 140 ft. in height with a trunk 2 or 3, or sometimes 5 or 6 ft. in diameter, and slender spreading branches which form a broad, flattish crown. The branchlets bear numerous simple or three-forked (whence the species-name triacanthos) sharp stiff spines, 3 to 4 in. long, at first red in colour, then chest nut brown; they are borne above the leaf-axils and represent un developed branchlets ; sometimes they are borne also on the trunk and main branches. The long-stalked leaves are 7 to 8 in. long with eight to fourteen pairs of narrowly oblong leaflets. The flowers, which are of two kinds, are borne in racemes in the leaf axils ; the staminate flowers in larger numbers. The brown pods are often 12 to 18 in. long, have thin, tough walls, and contain a quantity of sweetish, succulent pulp between the numerous seeds; they contract spirally when drying. The tree was first cultivated in Europe towards the end of the 17th century by Bishop Comp ton in his garden at Fulham, near London, and is now extensively planted as an ornamental tree. The much smaller swamp honey locust or water locust (G. aquatica), with shining brown pods, 1 in. to 2 in. long and containing only i or 2 seeds, inhabits deep swamps in the Mississippi valley from Illinois southward, ranging also eastward to South Carolina and Florida. The name of the genus commemorates Johann Gottlieb Gleditsch (1714-1786), a friend of Linnaeus, and the author of one of the earliest works on scientific forestry.