The fruit of the Osage Orange tree are falling.
It is part of the yearly rhythm that I look forward to. It, like leaves changing color, signals fall to me. It always makes me happy.
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| The Osage Orange is a simple, average looking tree. |
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| It's rough bark is interesting... |
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| but the most spectacular part of the tree is it's fruit. It is a large, dense, green wrinkled ball up to 6" in diameter. |
The name of the tree comes from the Osage tribe and the aroma of the fruit after it is ripe, which is the orange-peel smell of the skin. It is also called by other names, notably Hedgeapple. Chop one in half and you will see a pithy core surrounded by up to 200 small seeds that are much sought-after by squirrels. The seeds are edible by people, but one must do like the squirrels and pick them out of the slimy pulp. This is the only part of the fruit that people can eat. I personally, however, have never even attempted to eat it.
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| Can you see the milky fluid that comes out of it? |
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| After slicing it open, we gathered around to make a journal page. |
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| We had watercolors, colored pencils and pastels to use for our journal pages. |
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| student, age 19 |
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| student (special needs), age 16 |
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| student, age 6 |
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| student, age 9 |
The Osage Orange leaf is has an oval shape that tapers to a pointed tip and has a smooth leaf margin. The twigs that hold the leaves has thorns where the leaf attaches. They are a pretty medium green in the summer and turn a golden color in the fall.
Another interesting feature of this tree is its honey-orange colored wood. With its crooked curved growth, the wood looks almost deformed compared to arrow-straight hardwoods such as oak. But it resists rot well, and its natural crooks make it ideal for shaping into a ship's hull's curved ribs. It is so dense and resilient that the Osage tribe fashioned their famously powerful bows from the wood , the pioneers cut it into axles for their Conestoga wagons and Midwestern settlers sometimes used it for home foundations.
The wood has a particular fondness for my heart because of the Sultana Shipbuilding project. The First Sultana was a small Royal Navy schooner that patrolled the American coast from 1768 through 1772, preventing smuggling and collecting duties. She was retired when unrest in Britain's American colonies required larger, better armed patrol craft.
A replica of the Sultana, was crafted in 2000 in Chestertown and I accompanied Katie, along with other homeschoolers, at its shipyard one afternoon sanding down the wood on the deck. The ribs, made of Osage Orange wood so beautifully orange-honey colored, were something I will always remember.
