Osage Orange

[Mark_Thompson]

I would really like to grow one female Osage Orange tree, mostly for the novelty and for the wood (many years down the line obviously). I ordered some seeds, did thirty days in the refer, now have them in pots. Nothing has sprouted yet and I don't have high hopes. According to my reading they will grow from cuttings fairly easily. Is there anyone here who would be willing to send me some cuttings from a female tree that I could try to root and plant? It's definitely got potential to be an invasive here which is why I only plan to grow one, and want it to be a female, no pollen drifting with the wind looking for somewhere to land. I'll pay freight and for the cuttings too. Thank you

[pepperhead212]

I'm surprised that you are allowed to plant it there, if it's invasive.

[karstopography]

http://www.hear.org/misc/mauinews/pdfs/ ... orange.pdf

Evidently, there was or is one female tree in Maui, don’t know if it might still be there, osage orange is hard to eradicate, but in case you are in Maui and near Haiku. I wonder how a solitary female tree made it to a roadside there?

[Mark_Thompson]

Was a full hedge from the report I read. They killed it all. But if a full hedge didn’t spread, as long as I get a female I feel good about it.

[Ozarker]

As the resident Ozarker, I wish you Godspeed. I am charmed that someone is so eager to get ahold of one of our local trees (although I know they’re not just found in the Ozarks). We used to have a hedgerow of them on the old family farm, but erosion from a flooding creek has pretty much eradicated that bunch. I will keep an eye out for more, though. I’m sure there’s some on the farm somewhere, it’s just a matter of stumbling across them. I’m not great at cuttings of woody plants, however, and I certainly haven’t shipped anything like that before.

[karstopography]

We got them in spades here, males and female Osage Orange trees, not just hedges, but rather impressive mature trees. A friend of mine into primitive archery has made bows from the wood. My dad made a walking stick from the wood. If I ever wanted to pick a club for fighting, I pick Osage Orange.The wood is amazingly dense and hard. Like our native live oak, Osage orange sinks quickly in water, it is that dense.

I’ve read about taking cuttings. Mid to late summer is one window, then there’s a dormant period to take them and I read root cuttings can also be taken. I’m not sure I want to be the guy that helps introduce a potentially noxious non-indigenous plant into Hawaii, although, I realize that shipping only a female cuttings might not be such a bad thing providing there aren’t any laws that restrict doing so.

Obviously, there’s already plenty of non-native plants in Hawaii. I was on the Big Island in 1992 and there’s non native, yet beautiful plants all over that island. The Waipi'o Valley had all kinds of flora that escaped cultivation, I remember citrus in particular, and the beautiful wild impatiens that carpeted the forest floor. Bougainvillea that must of escaped cultivation grows right out of the old hard and otherwise barren lava flows on the Queen Ka'ahumanu Hwy there above Kona and like the tomato, Bougainvillea is a plant of the Americas, from South America. Pineapples aren’t native to Hawaii either and no one gets excited about eradicating those.

Some of these efforts to go back to indigenous only plants border on the ridiculous. Hawaii has had a series of colonization periods, first the Polynesians that brought their own non-native flora with them and all the subsequent activity. I get not wanting to have some impossible to eradicate weed that takes over, but it doesn’t appear Osage Orange, especially plant like that that has sexed plants, is going to fit the bill of public enemy number one. I’d worry more about blackberries or something like that, thorny and spreading, before I’d get excited about Osage Orange.

Osage Orange doesn’t really take over here, not even close. The link sort of makes a big deal about the thorns, but gosh, lots of plants have thorns. You want some thorns, If you like, I’ll send a cutting of a black locust tree that literally grow right next to the Osage Orange. Now black locust trees have some thorns that will get your attention.

[Mark_Thompson]

Yeah we are a hotbed for invasives that’s for sure. I’ve been on my property for eight years and watched the whole flora around me change twice, the latest invasive eclipsed the one before.

Hawaii has a list of noxious weeds that are illegal to ship, plant, propagate, but it hasn’t been updated since 1992(!). That should show you how high priority it is. Most species on the list are now widely established.

Right now the conservation folks are working on animals more than plants, with Little Fire Ants and Coqui Frogs the main targets.

Thanks for the generous black locust offer, but after googling those thorns I’m a strong helllll no haha.