OSAGE ORANGE; Bow WOOD (Toxylon pomiferum, Raf.). 10 to 60 feet. Round-headed tree with short trunk, fleshy roots, stout thorns, and bitter, milky sap. Bark dark, scaly, deeply furrowed; blanches orange brown; twigs fuzzy. Wood orange yellow, hard, heavy, flexible, strong, durable in soil, used for clubs and bows by Indians; for posts, ties, piles, pav ing blocks, telegraph poles, and for interior finish of houses. Leaves ovate, with entire margins, tapering at both ends, thick, shiny, dark green above, paler and dull beneath, 3 to 5 inches long, turning yellow in autumn; petioles long, slim, hairy, grooved; thorns solitary, in axils of leaves. Flowers
dicecious, greenish, minute, in crowded clusters, axillary. Fruit aggregate, by union of a multitude of fleshy, 1-seeded drupes, into a green ball, 4 or .5 inches in diameter, filled with milky, bitter juice, and often seedless where fertile trees stand far from staminate trees and thus miss pollenation of flowers. Dist.: Deep, rich soil; Southern Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. Extensively planted for hedges and for shade and c rnament, but not hardy where winters are severe.