{"id":151,"date":"2009-05-26T03:52:38","date_gmt":"2009-05-26T11:52:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/garden\/?p=151"},"modified":"2015-11-24T07:32:59","modified_gmt":"2015-11-24T15:32:59","slug":"black-locust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/black-locust\/","title":{"rendered":"Black Locust"},"content":{"rendered":"

BLACK LOCUST
\n<\/font><\/font><\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 “I need a tree identification,”\u009d wrote my friend.\u00a0 “It’s medium-tall with compound leaves and pink flowers that look like wisteria.”\u009d\u00a0 The e-mail directed me to an intersection in the next town where I could see the mystery tree for myself.\u00a0 My friend, the new owner of a country property, was clearly quite taken with the tree and I could tell that he was itching to order one–if only he know what to order.\u00a0 I like to be helpful in these situations.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 When I hear the words “flowers that look like wisteria,”\u009d I think right away of members of the legume family.\u00a0 Old-fashioned taxonomists call this family Leguminosae and modern ones call it Fabaceae.\u00a0 Whatever you call it, the legume family is large and very useful, with members that include species from garden peas to peanuts.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0You can eat the fruits of legumes or feed them to animals.\u00a0 The flowers of some species produce nectar that bees turn into very tasty honey and the roots fix nitrogen in the soil, which is essential for fertility.\u00a0 If you have ever seen a garden pea plant in flower, you will have a good idea of what many legume flowers look like.\u00a0 Wisteria, for example, features drooping flower bunches composed of scores of pea-like blossoms.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A Master Gardener friend suggested that the tree in question might be some kind of locust.\u00a0 Since locusts are members of the legume family, the idea had promise.\u00a0 A quick search of reference books, catalogues and websites confirmed the tree’s identity.\u00a0 It was most likely a Robinia pseudoacacia, sometimes also known as black locust or false acacia.\u00a0 When I went to see the specimen in question, there was no doubt.\u00a0 <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Robinia is native to southeastern North America, and was one of the first North American natives taken to Europe by early explorers.\u00a0 Linnaeus named it after gardener and herbalist Jean Robin, who served King Henri IV of France.\u00a0 According to Martin Rix in The Botanical Garden<\/em>, a Robinia, planted in the seventeenth century, survived in the Jardin des Plantes botanical garden in Paris until sometime in the 1980’s.\u00a0 A Robinia planted in 1759 still stands in England’s Kew Gardens.\u00a0 <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The “pseudoacacia”\u009d part of the Latin name–which gave rise to the common name “false acacia”\u009d–refers to the leaves, which resemble those of its relative, the acacia tree.\u00a0 <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 So how do you recognize a robinia?\u00a0 The trees can be as tall as eighty feet, with furrowed bark.\u00a0 The leaves are very small and pinnate or feather-like, arranged in odd-numbered groups of five to nineteen on opposite sides of the stems.\u00a0 The fragrant, wisteria-like flowers are pendulous, appearing in late spring.\u00a0 The most common Robinia pseudoacacia cultivars generally have white flowers, but some species sport the pink flowers that my friend admired.\u00a0 I suspect that he may have seen Robinia\u00a0 ‘Purple Robe’, which has dark pink blossoms and, according to one catalogue, purplish new foliage that turns green as it ages.\u00a0 The flowers are succeeded by flat, brown, bean-like seed pods.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Robinia has many virtues including beauty, hardiness and fast growth rate, which is why it is often planted as a street tree.\u00a0 It is also tolerant of pollution and poor soil.\u00a0 The blossoms attract pollinating insects, especially bees, making it valuable for urban and suburban ecosystems.\u00a0\u00a0 With hard, rot-resistant wood, black locust is also useful for things like fence posts that have to survive outside.\u00a0 When properly dried it also makes great firewood.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 With all those virtues, you would think that there would be a robinia on every street corner from southern New York State south.\u00a0 However, like many good things, including chocolate and fast cars, robinia has liabilities.\u00a0 It suckers and self seeds readily in many places, so vigilance on the part of the gardener is in order.\u00a0 Suckers can be easily removed with loppers and the seedlings can be pulled, hoed or mowed down.\u00a0 I have to confess that I don’t get as excited about seedlings as many people, probably because I have a lovely maple tree in front of my house that produces hundreds, if not thousands of seedlings a year.\u00a0 They can be a pain in the neck, but nothing more, and I wouldn’t think of removing a magnificent tree because of them.\u00a0 <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In some places, black locusts are also vulnerable to locust borers, which bore into the bark, allowing pathogens to infiltrate the trees.\u00a0 This is less of a problem if you have only a single specimen tree.\u00a0 A call to your county extension agent will help you determine whether or not locust borers are common in your area. <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The best solution for any pest problem is to avoid a monoculture where a single genus or species predominates.\u00a0 Planting robinia on your property–if you have the room–will add variety to the standard oaks and maples, give you great flowers in the spring and make the all-important neighborhood bees very, very happy.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 For a good selection of robinia species and cultivars, try ForestFarm, 990 Tetherow Road, Williams, OR 97544; (541) 846-7269 or <\/font><\/font>www.forestfarm.com<\/font><\/a>.\u00a0 Catalog $5.00.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BLACK LOCUST \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 “I need a tree identification,”\u009d wrote my friend.\u00a0 “It’s medium-tall with compound leaves and pink flowers that look like wisteria.”\u009d\u00a0 The e-mail directed me to an intersection in the next town where I could see the mystery tree for myself.\u00a0 My friend, the new owner of a country property, was clearly quite … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-interest","category-spring"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1634,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151\/revisions\/1634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}