Horseapple Tree

Just this week, I came across a story I had written about the horseapple or Bois d’Arc tree. (The full story appears in Wimberley author Shiila Safer’s book, Intimacy with Trees.) For this article, however, I would like to introduce the tree to those of you who might not be familiar with it. There aren’t too many of them in Wimberley, but I do happen to have one in my yard. It came up as a seedling and it was only after it grew quite a bit that I could identify it.

My family had one of these trees on the back of our lot that bordered an alley. As children, my two sisters and I would climb this thorny tree and hide dry, grapevine sticks and matches in a little niche. Why? We smoked those little stubby sticks as we watched unknowing people below us walking down the alley. I can still remember the very day I said to myself: “You better quit smoking right now. You don’t want to grow up and be an adult smoking grapevine sticks!” And I did. I never smoked real cigarettes either, thank goodness.

Now, back to the tree, a tree with many names: Osage Orange, Horse Apple, Bois s’Arc, Bodark, and Hedge Apple. It is a moderate sized tree about 40 feet tall with an open canopy and an irregular crown. The twigs turn light orange brown and stout thorns about an inch long grown along the leaf base. It is native to East and Central Texas and is often found along streams, creeks and fence lines. Its flowers, if you can ever spot them in the dense green foliage, are a lovely yellow from which large, green apples (not edible by humans about 5 inches thick grow. The surface of the apple is bumpy with convolutions almost “brain-like”. Osage Indians used the hard wood of this tree for their bow wood, hence the French name, Bois d’Arc, meaning bow of the wood. My next article will continue more history and uses of this tree.

Written by Martha Knies