What type of tree is a Monkey Ball tree?
The tree they come from is officially called the maclura pomifera. Other nicknames include osage orange, hedge apple, horse apple, bow wood, yellow wood or monkey brain tree. The fruits, or monkey balls, typically weigh between 1 and 5 pounds and are usually the size of a baseball.
Prior to the invention of barbed wire, these thorny trees were planted as natural fencing for cattle deterrents. In the Midwest, the Osage orange is often called hedge apple. Osage orange wood is very durable and is still used for making fence posts.
Maclura pomifera
Osage orange, or “hedge maple,” is a unique small to medium sized shade tree. Its orange colored wood is strong and extremely rot-resistant, and its bark furrowed with an orange tinge.
However, a 2015 study indicated that Osage orange seeds are not effectively spread by extant horse or elephant species. The fruit is not poisonous to humans or livestock, but is not preferred by them, because it is mostly inedible due to a large size (about the diameter of a softball) and hard, dry texture.
Osage orange firewood, also known as hedge, horse apple or bodark, is one of the best firewood types available. This oddly shaped tree does not grow very tall (roughly 26-49 feet) but its wood is extremely dense making it a great firewood choice.
And finally, the Osage orange wood burns hotter than any other wood, and is the closest thing to coal when it comes to heat production from a tree. And just for some fun, burning Osage orange wood produces its own kind of fireworks — sparks fly when the dense wood splinters as it burns.
The oils in hedge apples are well known for repelling pests such as spiders and mice. And the good news is, using hedge apples to repel these pests couldn't be easier!
They grows well on difficult sites, including soil too alkaline for other trees. It grows surprisingly fast for a dense-wooded tree, reaching 9-12 feet in a 3 to 5 year period.
Osage orange, (Maclura pomifera), also called bowwood, French bois d'arc, thorny tree or shrub native to the south-central United States, the only species of its genus in the family Moraceae.
Do any animals eat osage oranges?
Osage orange fruit is inedible. Even squirrels and other animals, including birds won't eat the fruit. But the seeds are edible and squirrels and other small mammals, bobwhite and other birds tear into the fruit to get the seeds. Osage orange fences, living fences, are gone now, replaced by barbed wire.
As you can see in the following pictures, the older males do feed on Osage Oranges, and they eat them with relish! This spot was visited frequently by several big males. Each time through they seemed to be motivated to partake of an Osage Orange, but they never ate many at one setting.
Osage-orange is a surprising rapid growing tree on the best sites, and has a relatively long life-span (approaching 130 years). It has reached its maximum size and age characteristics outside its Page 3 3 Dr. Kim D. Coder University of Georgia Warnell School native home range on fertile, moist soils.
Researchers found that the Osage orange failed to repel spiders but did repel some co*ckroaches and mosquitoes. The repellent properties came from compounds inside the fruit, however, and were ineffective when the fruit remained whole.
Folklore ascribes spider-fighting powers to these chartreuse fruits, prompting some people to put them in their garage or attic to ward off eight- and six-legged critters. The seeds are the only parts edible for humans, but they are mess to get to, fingers in slime and all that.
Osage orange fruit cut open, showing white, seedy pulp inside. Osage orange fruit are definitely not edible, and most foraging animals will not eat them. Only squirrel and the deer will eat the tiny seeds inside, which are the only edible part.
Poisonous Wood
Burning poison oak, poison ivy, poison sumac and poisonwood creates smoke with irritant oils that can cause severe breathing problems and eye irritation.
When buying or preparing firewood for the burning season, you probably want to know – what is the hottest burning wood? Hardwood species such as oak, maple, ash, and most fruit trees will provide you with the hottest burning, and longest-lasting coals for your money.
Pine, fir, and spruce: cone-bearing trees make for a beautiful sight in the forest, but their wood shouldn't make up the bulk of your firewood pile, especially for indoor fires. Beneath their bark, conifers have a sticky, protective substance called pitch or resin that you won't find in trees like oak or maple.
Like many woody species Osage orange tends to have an invasive nature when exposed to poorly managed range and pasture land. It can be found on idle acres and on abandoned farm land near hedge row plantings.
Can you plant an Osage orange?
Osage orange seeds have a 50 percent germination rate within 30 days if they are soaked in cool water or cold stratified before sowing. Start the seeds in 8-inch nursery pots filled with a moistened mixture of half potting soil and half coarse sand. Sow two seeds in each pot at a depth of 3/8 inch.
Dryer sheets don't deter mice. Baited traps won't solve a mouse problem, either.
Monkey balls are also called osage oranges or hedge apples. They're the fruit of the tree Maclura pomifera. The weird, bumpy fruit looks a little like a lime-green brain and contains a substance that repels spiders and many insects. It works best if you cut a fruit in half and set one of the halves out in a dish.
Myth: "Hedge apples" (Osage orange fruit) or horse chestnuts can be used to repel spiders. Fact: The story that the fruit of the Osage orange tree (also called hedge apple, monkey ball, or spider ball) can repel or ward off spiders turns out to be extremely widespread in Midwestern states, where the trees are common.
In southwestern Pennsylvania, they're commonly called "monkey balls," but in other regions, this peculiar fruit and the trees from which they fall are known as hedge apples, bowwood, bois d'arc (French for "wood of the bow"), bodark, geelhout, mock orange, horse apple, naranjo chino, wild orange and yellow-wood.
It is now grown in most tropical, subtropical, and temperate regions, especially in India and China (the major world producers), W Africa, and the SE United States.
Monkey Puzzle nuts can be eaten raw, but they are much tastier when cooked. Dry cooking a starchy nut will harden them into something inedible and tooth-cracking, so don't bother oven roasting.
“It's a tree that has many common names,” Stavish said. “I don't think anybody knows why the monkey ball name came about.” Maybe the name is some reference to monkey genitalia, he said, which are sometimes colorful, but the hypothesis can't be proven.
