Wood is suitable for agricultural implements, tool handles, shoe lasts, sports goods, dowels and pins for insulators on telephone and telegraph wires, tree nails, boat ribs, brackets, sleepers, and sills. It is used also for light construction, gates, wagon hubs, cart wheels, shipbuilding, furniture and turnery work. Some burrs of the trees provide attractive wood for tabletops, and music cabinets. Cherokee used the plant as an emetic and for toothache. Toxic symptoms are suggestive of those associated with belladonna poisoning.
Inner bark is reported to contain amygdalin, and urease.
Leaves, considered antispasmodic and laxative, prescribed in digestive disorders, are poisonous to chicken. Flowers also contain 1-asparagine a volatile oil and wax. The flower is said to contain the antitumor compound benzoaldehyde. Germplasm Reported from North American Center of Diversity, black locust, or cvs thereof, is reported to tolerate drought, frost, high pH, limestone, low pH, poor soil, slope, stripmine spoil. The wood of var.