page_title: Maclura pomifera
section_title: Distribution
hierarchical_section_title: Maclura pomifera / Distribution
caption_attribution_description: English: Range map of Maclura pomifera
context_page_description: Maclura pomifera, commonly known as the Osage orange, hedge, or hedge apple tree is a small deciduous tree or large shrub, typically growing to 8 to 15 metres tall. The distinctive fruit, from a multiple fruit family, is roughly spherical, bumpy, 8 to 15 centimetres in diameter, and turns bright yellow-green in the fall. The fruits secrete a sticky white latex when cut or damaged. Despite the name "Osage orange", it is only distantly related to the orange. It is a member of the mulberry family, Moraceae. Due to its latex secretions and woody pulp, the fruit is typically not eaten by humans and rarely by foraging animals, giving it distinction as an anachronistic "ghost of evolution".
  Maclura pomifera has been known by a variety of common names in addition to Osage orange, including hedge apple, horse apple, the French bois d'arc and English transliterations: bodark and bodock, also translated as "bow-wood"; monkey ball, monkey brains, yellow-wood and mock orange.
context_section_description: Osage orange's pre-Columbian range was largely restricted to a small area in what is now the United States, namely the Red River drainage of Oklahoma, Texas, and Arkansas, as well as the Blackland Prairies and post oak savannas. A disjunct population also occurred in the Chisos Mountains of Texas. It has since become widely naturalized in the United States and Ontario, Canada. Osage orange has been planted in all the 48 contiguous states of the United States and in southeastern Canada.
  The largest known Osage orange tree is located at River Farm, in Alexandria, Virginia, and is believed to have been a gift from Thomas Jefferson. Another historic tree is located on the grounds of Fort Harrod, a Kentucky pioneer settlement in Harrodsburg, Kentucky.
caption: Natural range of M. pomifera in pre-Columbian era America.
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