These things litter the back country fence lines of Virginia. They are bigger than your fist and weigh a pound. What are they?
These things litter the back country fence lines of Virginia. They are bigger than your fist and weigh a pound. What are they?
These look like Osage Oranges. We had a row of them dividing our back yard from a golf course, and they littered their fruit all over the place!
Horseapples I believe. We've got them some places here, but fortunately not in our yard!
I wouldn't want to get hit by one of those falling. I have enough problems with migraines! So what are they?? They look kind of brainy.
Hi Steve and Jan,
they look cool, but I am pretty sure that people that have these trees wll evenually would try to get rd of them.i
Have no idea, but they sure look interesting Steve. I'll be back to find out what they are...........
Maclura pomifera ...This rock of a fruit's common name is as Pat says... Osage Oranges....their most used nom de guerre in the midwest or Horse Apples as Bill says....
...most folks call them Hedge Apples or Horse Apples around here. One reason they line the hedge rows in old sections of Virginia is that they are thorny and were used as a natural fence line to keep cattle in.
They can grow to 6 inches in diameter and are pretty much ineadible accept for the seeds......you can read more about this interesting tree right here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maclura_pomifera
The Osage-orange is commonly used as a tree row windbreak in prairie states, which gives it one of its colloquial names, "hedge apple". It was one of the primary trees used in President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's "Great Plains Shelterbelt" WPA project, which was launched in 1934 as an ambitious plan to modify weather and prevent soil erosion in the Great Plains states, and by 1942 resulted in the planting of 30,233 shelterbelts containing 220 million trees that stretched for 18,600 miles (29,900 km).[9] The sharp-thorned trees were also planted as cattle-deterring hedges before the introduction of barbed wire and afterward became an important source of fence posts.
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