william cullina (head of garden in the woods' nursery) says that all the thornless honey locusts in cultivation are descended from a small group of thornless ones found in isolation in the wild. i don't know if that's true, but i think it's interesting.
when i was a child i was taught that mature, standalone honey locusts are hit by lightning more often than other trees. the (thorned) one in the yard next to ours was indeed hit more often than any other tree near us, but i have no idea whether that was just coincidence.
we had one of these bad boys in our house in UPSTATE as in on the border with canada, eh? like, can SEE canada from the second floor :) it was QUITE tall, over 90 feet, and easily 3 feet around. also spikey. oh boy, spikey. beauty of a tree. soft, gentle reliable shade. this one had rather small beans compared to the ones i see in boston - HEYOOGE. good music makers if you find a perfect one.
alas, they cut the tree down after my mom moved out, bulldozed the house, turned it in a parking lot, and setup a mini mart. from gross point blank "you can't go home, but you can shop there".
the property also featured something of a fault-line, that shifted about 1 foot or so per 70-90 years by my guessing. the basement was shear through on a line and shifted, and examining everything for hundreds of feet along that line, that same was true :) naturally, they built the gas tanks for the mini mart RIGHT ON THAT LINE :> oh boy.
I love the honey locust tree! Its pods have delighted me since I was a teenager and spotted them on my college campus; I don't think they grew in my childhood neighborhood, but there is at least one big one where I live now.
vs Black Locust?
anonymous
October 4 2006, 15:28:22 UTC
How do you tell the difference? We have a stand of old black locusts nearby, that must have been planted along the mill stream years ago, because we don't seem to have them in many other places. Our sycamores also seem to be of similar origin. Black locust is a great firewood, rot resistant, and also fixes nitrogen. I see them on quite a few front lawns of old farmhouses up in New Hampshire.
Re: vs Black Locust?urbpanOctober 4 2006, 16:06:51 UTC
Follow my link to black locust to see its bark and compare it to the bark of the thorny honey locust pictured above. The bark is the most obvious difference between these two trees. Black locust is considered invasive in massachusetts (and is on the prohibited list), while honey locust is not.
Re: vs Black Locust?
anonymous
October 4 2006, 17:30:59 UTC
Thanks for the response. I can recognize black locust bark, but I'll have to work on honey locust. As it turns out, I may have a small honey locust next to my compost pile; that little 10-footer has lenticels and very small leaves. To me it is wierd that black locust is considered an invasive, because it is such a useful tree, whereas I think of honey locust as more of a toy tree.
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when i was a child i was taught that mature, standalone honey locusts are hit by lightning more often than other trees. the (thorned) one in the yard next to ours was indeed hit more often than any other tree near us, but i have no idea whether that was just coincidence.
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alas, they cut the tree down after my mom moved out, bulldozed the house, turned it in a parking lot, and setup a mini mart. from gross point blank "you can't go home, but you can shop there".
the property also featured something of a fault-line, that shifted about 1 foot or so per 70-90 years by my guessing. the basement was shear through on a line and shifted, and examining everything for hundreds of feet along that line, that same was true :) naturally, they built the gas tanks for the mini mart RIGHT ON THAT LINE :> oh boy.
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