Lethal Trees

[Moses03]

Scattered around our part of Texas are these lethal looking Honey Locust trees. From a distance they look pretty but when you get up close you start to see these 3"-4" thorns all over the branches. The thorns are not soft either, they are very hard and can actually be nailed into softer woods.

Note the secondary set of smaller thorns on each of the main thorns. Ouchie.

There are a couple in the park down the street from us:









Sorry about the soft focus in the last shot. You can see that it is just short of 3". The longer thorns were higher up the tree.

Who needs barbed wire when you could just plant these around the perimeter!

[Willy]

I've heard of those being used in fence rows along with Bois d arc (Osage Orange) which also has some pretty sharp thorns about an inch long.

Have to admit though that at first thought I was thinking about the "Mexican Jumping Redwoods" in FS.

[Moses03]

Rgr that Willy, except you get all those dang horseapples all over the place each season.

[Willy]

Squirrels like to eat those horseapples. I've hunted many a squirrel in those things.

[OBIO]

My brother-in-law Mike works for a tree removal company and has had many many run ins with Honey Locust trees. He has had those long hard barbs sunk deep into his arms and legs....and had some pretty nasty reactions to them. Those barbs have a low level toxin in them or something.....he said that even getting scratched by those things results in severe pain and redness and swelling in the area.

OBIO

[Sascha66]

Wicked! What kind of animal would usually eat the leaves in Texas that is driven way by the thorns?

[Jagdflieger]

Don't forget the Mesquite tree thorns down in Southern Texas.

[brad kaste]

There are thorn-less varieties of Locust trees. Thirty years ago I bought from Frank's nursery (long out of business) four, thorn-less Skyline Locust Trees. Each were skinny sticks about 5ft. in height. They were planted along the parkway of the house. All four have grown into wonderful, full sized trees,....now 35ft. in height. Wonderful shade trees...highly tolerant to urban/suburban atmospheres.... and no special care needed. I'm glad I bought them instead of some maple or ash type tree.