The Osage orange trees we see today are out of their historic range, and just haven’t had time to adapt to the loss of Ice Age megafauna for seed distribution. The sharp spines would have helped protect the actual tree. Over 12,000 years ago, a giant ground sloth roaming what is now Texas could have eaten its fair share of the fruit and not felt the effects of the toxic latex goo. This means that the hedge apples were adapted to be dispersed by large, now extinct mammals. Much like the honey locust, this suggests that the tree needed protection from large herbivores, such as the megafauna found during the Ice Age. The tree itself is covered in sharp spines. So why would a tree living in Ohio produce a fruit that no animal wants to eat? Let’s look at the history of the tree to figure out this hedge apple head scratcher. Even squirrels can’t eat too much of the fruit without feeling the effects of the toxins. Typically, trees that bear fruit rely on animals to eat the fruit and later expel the seeds in another location to help disperse those seeds. Though the seeds can be eaten, the work it takes to get them is not worth the effort. This makes the fruit toxic and largely inedible. Whether you call them monkey brains, horse apples, mock orange, or something else entirely, hedge apples are everywhere in the fall. Someone lines the guardrail on SR 315 just opposite Bunty Station Road with them every year, and for some reason it makes me so happy. These weird bright green spheres, roughly the size of a softball, emerge on female Osage orange trees in September – October. The trees are dioecious, meaning male and female flowers are found on separate trees, and female trees produce the fruit. When cut open, the fruit and stems both secrete a latex goo, much like that found in milkweed plants.
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