Plant Family: Fabaceae
Growth Form: Medium-sized to large tree, 15 – 25 meters in height.
Leaves: Alternate, compound, 20 – 25 cm long, with many small oblong leaflets that may be lightly toothed; leaflets turn golden-yellow in the fall.
Bark: Gray-brown, rough, with scaly plates; in its native range the trunk is armed with clusters of stout, branched thorns, and large, single thorns may be found along the branches. Cultivated varieties lack thorns or have just a few sparse thorns.
Flowers: Small, greenish yellow, fragrant, with five petals, held in long racemes, May to July.
Fruits: Long, yellow-green, flat pods that becomes reddish brown and twisted as they ripen, holding several small brown seeds in a sweet pulp; seen from September into winter; some cultivars are seedless.
Habitat: Rich, moist soils and pastures in its native range. In New England it is most often seen in cultivation in parks and as a hardy street tree, but sometimes escapes to the wild.
Range: The native range is the Midwest and the southern Mississippi River watershed.
Similar Species: Black Locust has wider, more rounded leaflets that are never toothed and small paired spines in the leaf axils.
Comments: The sweet pulp of the fruit pods is favored by cattle, deer, and other animals, who subsequently spread the seeds.
