Latin Name - Gleditsia triacanthos inermis
Height - 50-75 feet
Spread - 35-50 feet
Growth Rate - Fast
USDA Zone - 3 to 8
Drought Tolerance - Moderate
This tree is among the most widely-planted of all landscape plants. It grows fast, tolerates varying conditions and is easy for nurseries to produce. You can find thornless honeylocust in practically any institutional landscape. Regular honeylocust (also on this tour) loses its dangerous thorns with this selection. (Please delete this and the previous sentence from the description.) The light, lacy branching and foliage of this tree allows other plants to be successfully cultivated underneath. Newer selections of thornless honeylocust are touted as fruitless (no long, brown seedpods) although they may not be so 100 percent of the time. Even normally fruitless cultivars can produce pods on occasion. The main concern with planting thornless honeylocust is that its popularity will lead to overplanting, producing a tree monoculture ripe for the next insect or disease epidemic.