Scientific Name
Maclura pomifera ‘Whiteshield’
At the time of European settlement, the Osage orange tree was found only in a small area around the junction of Arkansas, Texas and Oklahoma. That area was the home of the indigenous Osage tribe, who used the wood from this tree to make such fine hunting bows that it became a valuable trade commodity. Soon, it was found that this tree could thrive in far colder climates. Because of its fearsome thorns, it was adopted by European settlers in the Midwest as a hedgerow tree that was impenetrable to humans, and most importantly, to their livestock. After some decades, the introduction of barbed wire made this use of the tree for hedgerows obsolete, but not before it had been spread across the central U.S. As a fairly long-lived tree, some still survive on the margins of original Midwest farmsteads.
The thorniness of Osage orange was highly detrimental to its suitability for urban or park landscapes, as was also the female plants' production of large bright green inedible fruits, often as large as softballs, that exude a sticky latex when cut. These fruits have a pebbly surface that led to them sometimes being called "hedge apples" or "monkey brains," their texture vaguely resembling citrus fruits, which surely led to them being called the "oranges" of the Osage people.
Despite its drawbacks, the positive qualities of this tree species are numerous. It is very tolerant of heat, wind, drought, soils high either in acidity or alkalinity, is fast-growing and tolerates temperatures below minus 20 degrees Fahrenheit. The foliage is a glossy dark green, which will often turn a bright yellow in the fall. This is a medium-sized tree that typically matures around 40 feet in height, with a similar canopy spread. With all these valuable qualities it's been our good fortune that plant explorers found a small number of thornless male individuals growing in the wild, and the nursery industry has propagated them for landscape use. The two most popular cultivars on the market are 'Whiteshield' and 'Wichita.'
These cultivars are propagated via grafting, resulting in all the individuals of a given cultivar being genetically identical above the graft union, which can usually be found a bit above the soil line. Meanwhile, the trees’ root systems belong to random Osage orange seedlings. Sometimes, like when the top part of the plant fails, vigorous new shoots from the base of the tree can arise, but they'll have the thorniness of the wild species and may be females that will eventually produce a nice crop of "monkey brains!"
Long before the advent of grafted cultivars for landscape use, some very large specimens of non-cultivar (i.e., thorny!) Osage orange trees were planted along Colorado’s Front Range region, with state champions exceeding 40 feet in trunk diameter, and attaining heights above 40 feet, meaning they're shorter than many other trees with similarly thick trunks. At this point in time, no Osage orange thornless cultivars have grown large enough to be nominated for champion status.