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West Virginia Trees

Chapter 99: COMMON LOCUST
By A. B. Brooks
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Nature/Gardening/Animals

About This Book

A practical field guide to the native and introduced trees of West Virginia, providing keys based mainly on leaves and fruits, concise family and species descriptions, and detailed line drawings for about 101 native species. It organizes trees by botanical families, gives brief flower notes, a glossary of terms, and suggestions for identifying specimens; occasional introduced species and shrubs are noted. The bulletin emphasizes simplicity for non-specialists, offers measurements and habit descriptions for each species, and includes administrative prefatory material. Its aim is to aid lay readers and students in tree identification and to encourage local interest in forestry.

COMMON LOCUST

Robinia Pseudo-Acacia, L.

Form.—Height 50-75 feet, diameter 2-3 feet; trunk when grown in the forest often tall and free from limbs; crown loose and more or less irregular.

Leaves.—Alternate, compound, odd-pinnate, 8-14 inches long; leaflets 7-21, ovate or oblong, 1-2 inches long, entire, very thin, smooth, dull green above, paler beneath; stipules thorny or spine-like.

Flowers.—May, after the leaves; perfect, pea-shaped, white, very fragrant, borne on slender pedicels in loose drooping racemes 4-5 inches long.

Fruit.—A flat pod 3-4 inches long, containing 4-8 small brown seeds.

Bark.—Deeply furrowed into firm, prominent ridges, reddish-brown.

Wood.—Heavy, very hard and strong, close-grained, very durable in contact with the soil, brownish with thin yellow sapwood.

Range.—Pennsylvania to Georgia west to Iowa and Kansas. Naturalized over a large area in America and extensively cultivated in Europe.

Distribution in West Virginia.—Common throughout West Virginia, but most abundant and healthiest in high limestone areas.

Habitat.—Prefers rich limestone soil, but adapts itself to other soils and to almost all exposures and elevations.

Notes.—Black Locust, Yellow Locust, and False Acacia are other names of this tree. According to Sargent’s “Manual of the Trees of North America” locust trees are “most abundant and of largest size on the western slopes of the Alleghanies of West Virginia.” It is a rapid grower, its wood is unsurpassed for many purposes and, as a legume, it adds fertility to the soil wherever it grows.