This weird fruit is native to North America and an ‘ecological anachronism’

I was standing in a parking lot in Montgomery County on Saturday when something big and hard hit the ground near me with a loud cracking sound. What had fallen next to me was a Maclura pomifera, otherwise known as the Osage orange. I picked it up, and so began a lesson in the native fruit trees of North America and the eccentricities of our local ecology.

From Osage orange to hedge apple

The Osage orange tree is not really an orange at all, but a member of the mulberry family. It is almost endemic to the continental United States, and can be found today in 41 states, including those in the Washington region.

During the colonial period, the tree was found only in the Red River basin, which includes east-central Texas, southeastern Oklahoma, and part of Arkansas. This region is part of the ancestral territory of the Osage nation — hence the tree’s colloquial name.

You won’t find an Osage orange in a grocery store. The rind of the fruit is pretty hard, it doesn’t taste good, and when you cut it open the fruit oozes an extremely sticky latex. However, the wood of the tree is notably resistant to decay, and the tree itself spreads via lateral roots. Because of these characteristics, the tree was and is valued for making bows.

In the post-Civil War period when white settlers were expanding into the American West, the Prairie Farmer promoted the tree as a living fence for marking farm boundaries. This practice also made its way back East, which is how the tree arrived in our region. This is why the plant is also commonly referred to as the “hedge apple.”

An ecological anachronism

If this native tree can flourish in 41 states, why was it confined to the Red River basin during the colonial period? The answer lies in the tree’s large, tough fruit.

Trees grow fruits with seeds inside them to attract animals to eat the fruit, then spread the seeds through their poop. The Osage orange evolved a very large, tough fruit that was attractive to ancient megafauna like mammoths and ground sloths — and then the tree outlived those species. With no gigantic mammals eating the fruits, the tree languished as an “ecological anachronism,” a species rendered out of date.

Few were spreading the Osage orange around until a professor at Illinois College and the editor of a popular agricultural newspaper decided the tree made a perfect fence.

Our region has its own Osage orange claim to fame: the oldest tree at George Washington’s River Farm in Fort Hunt is an Osage orange, one of the largest in the country. The tree may have been a gift from Thomas Jefferson to Washington — Jefferson received Osage orange seedlings from the Lewis and Clark expedition of 1804 to 1806, according to the American Horticultural Society.

Native fruits and where to find them

Today, there are many more practical options for fencing, so the Osage orange will have to spread itself. One enterprising representative of the species made a bold attempt last Saturday, when it pitched its curious-looking fruit at me in a parking lot, and I picked it up, brought it home, and cut it in half. Regrettably, its future was cut very short by my distress at discovering how sticky Osage orange sap is (to remove the sap, use rubbing alcohol).

Despite my questionable Osage orange experience, it’s worth looking out for, or even making space in your yard or garden for, far more edible wild native fruits. While hiking in our area, you may encounter paw paws, persimmons, or various berries. You’ll likely have a far more pleasant experience cutting them open.