Osage orange
[f. Osage n. and a. + orange n.1]
= maclura, a tree native to Arkansas and neighbouring regions formerly occupied by the Osage people; also, the fruit of this tree. Also attrib.
| 1817 J. Bradbury Trav. Amer. 160 note, It bleeds an acrid milky juice when wounded, and is called by the hunters the Osage orange. 1838 H. W. Ellsworth Valley Upper Wabash v. 52 These fences, whose tops are covered with a luxuriant growth of the wild locust hawthorn, or Osage Orange. 1846 D. J. Browne Trees Amer. 465 The Osage Orange-tree. 1857 Trans. Illinois Agric. Soc. II. 23 The practicability of successfully cultivating the Osage Orange plant into a protective hedge. 1859 Marcy Prairie Trav. i. 26 Wheels made of the bois d'arc, or Osage-orange wood, are the best for the plains, as they shrink but little. 1890 Blackw. Mag. Jan. 60 We had three miles of osage orange hedges. 1891 Harper's Mag. Sept. 579/2 There was a hedge of Osage Orange on one side of the yard. 1940 E. Fergusson Our Southwest ix. 157 Mrs. Hayden found a stately adobe house with water piped in, an osage orange hedge around an orchard. 1970 New Yorker 28 Feb. 41/2 When we were little..we could bowl the Osage oranges down. 1974 A. Dillard Pilgrim at Tinker Creek vi. 100 Beneath the overarching limbs of tulip, walnut, and Osage orange, I see the creek pour down. |