+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| ## Honey locust {#honey-locust .Title-Header}                         |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| *Gleditisia triacanthose* L.                                          |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Plant Symbol = GLTR                                                   |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+

####### *Contributed By: USDA NRCS National Plant Data Center & the Biota of North America Program*

### 

![](media/image2.jpeg){width="2.6979166666666665in"
height="4.0465277777777775in"}

R. Mohlenbrock

USDA, NRCS, Wetland Science Institute

@ PLANTS

## Alternate common names 

Common honey-locust, honey-shucks locust . honeylocust, honey locust

## Uses

Honey-locust is widely planted as a hardy and fast-growing ornamental.
It is often used in extreme urban stress areas such as parking lot
islands and sidewalk tree squares and has been planted for erosion
control, for windbreaks and shelterbelts, and as a vegetation pioneer
for rehabilitation of strip-mine spoil banks. Because of the small
leaflets and open crown, the trees cast a light shade that permits
shade-tolerant turfgrass and partial-shade perennials to grow
underneath. Cultivars have been selected for crown shape and branch
angles and leaf color, and most are both thornless and fruitless.
Over-use of honey-locust in cities has led to recommendations that its
use be discouraged until adequate biodiversity is restored.

Honey-locust wood is dense, hard, coarse-grained, strong, stiff,
shock-resistant, takes a high polish, and is durable in contact with
soil. It has been used locally for pallets, crates, general
construction, furniture, interior finish, turnery, firewood, railroad
ties, and posts (fence posts may sprout to form living fences), but it
is too scarce to be of economic importance. The wood also was formerly
valued for bows.

The geographic range of honey-locust probably was extended by Indians
who dried the legumes, ground the dried pulp, and used it as a sweetener
and thickener, although the pulp also is reported to be irritating to
the throat and somewhat toxic. Fermenting the pulp can make a potable or
energy alcohol. Native Americans sometimes ate cooked seeds, they have
also been roasted and used as a coffee substitute.

Honey-locust pods are eaten by cattle, goats, deer, opossum, squirrel,
rabbits, quail, crows, and starling. White-tailed deer and rabbits eat
the soft bark of young trees in winter, and livestock and deer eat young
vegetative growth. Honey-locust is planted around wildlife plots and
into pastures and hayfields to provide high-protein mast. Cattle do not
digest the seeds, but sheep do.

## Status

Please consult the PLANTS Web site and your State Department of Natural
Resources for this plant's current status, such as, state noxious status
and wetland indicator values.

## Description

*General*: Pea Family (Fabaceae). Native trees growing to 20 meters
tall, with an open crown, armed with thick-branched thorns to 20 cm long
on the main trunk and lower branches. Bark blackish to grayish-brown,
with smooth, elongate, plate-like patches separated by furrows. Leaves
are deciduous, alternate, pinnately or bipinnately compound, 10-20 cm
long, often with 3-6 pairs of side branches; leaflets paired, oblong,
1-3 cm long, shiny and dark green above, turning a showy yellow in the
fall, typically dropping early. Flowers are greenish-yellow, fragrant,
small and numerous in hanging clusters 5-13 cm long, mostly either
staminate (male) or pistillate (female), these usually borne on separate
trees, but some perfect flowers (male plus female) on each tree (the
species polygamo-dioecious). Fruits are flattened and strap-like pods
15-40 cm long and 2.5-3.5 cm wide, dark brown at maturity, pendulous and
usually twisted or spiraled, with a sticky, sweet, and flavorful pulp
separating the seeds; seeds beanlike, about 1 cm long. The common name
\"honey\" is in reference to the sweet pulp of the fruits.

*Variation within the species*: *Gleditsia triacanthos* var. *inermis*
(L.) Schneid. ("inermis" means unarmed) is occasionally found wild,
apparently more as a populational variant than what is generally given
formal taxonomic status as a variety. Such trees have provided stock for
selection of some the thornless horticultural forms, but most of the
latter are actually derived from buds or stem cuttings taken from the
upper, thornless portions of physiologically mature trees thorny in the
lower portions. Scions taken from this area generally remain thornless.
Breeders also can control the sex of scions by selecting unisexual
budwood for cuttings. Certain branches bear only one type of flower, and
trees from cuttings of those branches will bear only that type.

Southern races of the species produce fruit more nutritious for stock
feeding than northern races.

Natural hybridization between honey-locust and water-locust (*Gleditsia
aquatica*) produces *Gleditsia* X *texana* Sarg., the Texas
honey-locust.

## Distribution

Honey-locust is essentially Midwestern in distribution, from the west
slope of Appalachians to the eastern edge of Great Plains \-- scattered
in the east-central US from central Pennsylvania westward to
southeastern South Dakota, south to central and southeastern Texas, east
to southern Alabama, then northeasterly through Alabama to western
Maryland. Outlying populations occur in northwestern Florida, west
Texas, and west central Oklahoma. It is naturalized east to the
Appalachians from South Carolina north to Pennsylvania, New York, and
New England and Nova Scotia; sometimes a weed tree in India, New
Zealand, and South Africa. For current distribution, please consult the
Plant Profile page for this species on the PLANTS Web site.

## Establishment

*Adaptation*: Honey-locust occurs on well-drained sites, upland
woodlands and borders, rocky hillsides, old fields, fence rows, river
floodplains, hammocks, and rich, moist bottomlands. It is most commonly
found on moist, fertile soils near streams and lakes. It is tolerant of
flooding and also is drought-resistant and somewhat tolerant of
salinity. On bottomlands, it is a pioneer tree. On limestone uplands, it
is an invader of rocky glades and abandoned farm fields and pastures. It
is generally found below 760 meters, but up to 1500 meters in a few
places. Flowering: May-June; fruiting: September-October, sometimes
remaining on the tree through February.

*General*: Seed production begins on honey-locust trees at about 10
years and continues until about age 100, with optimum production at
about 25-75 years of age. Some seed usually is produced every year but
large crops usually occur every other year. The seeds are viable for
long periods because of a thick, impermeable seed coat. Under natural
conditions, individual seeds become permeable at different periods
following maturation so that germination is spread over several years.
The seeds are dispersed by birds and mammals, including cattle, which
eat the fruits, and buffalo may have been historically important
dispersal agents of the seeds. Germinability apparently is enhanced by
passage through the digestive tract of animals. Honey-locust also
reproduces from stump and root sprouts.

Honey-locust is generally shade-intolerant and reproduction is primarily
in open areas, gaps, and at the edges of woods. The ability of
honey-locust to invade prairie and rangeland is thought to be related to
its tolerance of xeric conditions. Growth is rapid and trees live to a
maximum of about 125 years.

## Management

The only serious disease of honey-locust is a canker, which is
occasionally fatal, but trees in landscape plantings may be damaged by a
number of pests and pathogens. Damage to young honey-locust also may be
caused by rabbits gnawing the bark and by browsing of livestock and
deer.

Honey-locust is easily injured by fire because of its thin bark, but it
sprouts after top-kill by fire. It appears to be excluded from prairies
by frequent fire. Infrequent fires may create openings for reproduction
in bottomland forests. Honey-locust is not a nitrogen fixer.

## Cultivars, Improved and Selected Materials (and area of origin)

Contact your local Natural Resources Conservation Service (formerly Soil
Conservation Service) office for more information. Look in the phone
book under "United States Government." The Natural Resources
Conservation Service will be listed under the subheading "Department of
Agriculture." These plant materials are readily available from
commercial sources.

## References

Blair, R.M. 1990. *Gleditsia triacanthos*. Pp. 358-364, IN: R.M. Burns
and B.H. Honkala. *Silvics of North America*. *Volume 2.* *Hardwoods*.
USDA Forest Service Agric. Handbook 654, Washington, D.C.
\<http://willow.ncfes.umn.edu/silvics_manual/Table_of_contents.htm\>

Dirr, M.A. 1974. *Tolerance of honeylocust seedlings to soil-applied
salts*. Hortscience 9:53-54.

Duke, J.A. 1983. *Handbook of energy crops*. Unpublished. Center for New
Crops & Plant Products, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana.
\<http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/duke_energy/Gleditsia_triacanthos.html\>

Gordon, D. 1966. *A revision of the genus Gleditsia (Leguminosae)*.
Ph.D. diss., Indiana Univ., Bloomington, Indiana.

Halverson, H.G. & D.F. Potts 1981. *Water requirements of honey locust
(Gleditsia triacanthos f. inermis) in the urban forest*. USDA Forest
Service, Res. Pap. NE-487.

Michener, D.C. 1986. *Phenotypic instability in Gleditsia triacanthos
(Fabaceae)*. Brittonia 38:360-361.

Potts, D.F. & L.P. Herrington 1982. *Drought resistance adaptations in
urban honeylocust*. J. Arboric. 8:75-80.

Robertson, K.R. & Y.T. Lee 1976. *The genera of Caesalpinioideae in the
southeastern United States*. J. Arnold Arbor. 57:1-34.

Schnabel, A. & J.L. Hamrick 1995. *Understanding the population genetic
structure of Gleditsia triacanthos L.: The scale and pattern of pollen
gene flow*. Evolution 49:921-931.

Smith, G.C. & E.G. Brennan 1984. *Response of honeylocust cultivars to
air pollution stress in an urban environment*. J. Arboric. 10:289-293.

Sullivan, J. 1994. *Gleditsia triacanthos*. IN: W.C. Fischer
(compiler*). The fire effects information system \[database\]*. USDA,
Forest Service, Intermountain Research Station, Intermountain Fire
Sciences Laboratory, Missoula, Montana.
\<http://www.fs.fed.us/database/feis/\>

USDA, NRCS 1993. *Northeast wetland flora: Field office guide to plant
species*. Wetland Science Institute, Laurel, Maryland.

Wilson, A.A. 1991. *Browse agroforestry using honeylocust*. Forestry
Chronicle. 67:232-235.

## Prepared By

*Guy Nesom*

BONAP, North Carolina Botanical Garden, University of North Carolina,
Chapel Hill, North Carolina

## Species Coordinator

### *Gerald Guala*

USDA, NRCS, National Plant Data Center, Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Edited: 05dec00 jsp; 03feb03ahv

For more information about this and other plants, please contact your
local NRCS field office or Conservation District, and visit the PLANTS
Web site\<[http://plants.usda.gov](http://plants.usda.gov/)\> or the
Plant Materials Program Web site
\<[http://Plant-Materials.nrcs.usda.gov](http://Plant-Materials.nrcs.usda.gov/)\>

*The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) prohibits discrimination in
all its programs and activities on the basis of race, color, national
origin, sex, religion, age, disability, political beliefs, sexual
orientation, and marital or family status. (Not all prohibited bases
apply to all programs.) Persons with disabilities who require
alternative means for communication of program information (Braille,
large print, audiotape, etc.) should contact USDA\'s [TARGET
Center](http://www.usda.gov/oo/target.htm) at 202-720-2600 (voice and
TDD).*

*To file a complaint of discrimination write USDA, Director, Office of
Civil Rights, Room 326-W, Whitten Building, 14th and Independence
Avenue, SW, Washington, DC 20250-9410 or call 202-720-5964 (voice or
TDD). USDA is an equal opportunity provider and employer.*

*Read about [Civil Rights at the Natural Resources Convervation
Service](http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/about/civilrights/).*