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Summary
Duration	Perennial
Growth Habit	Tree, Shrub
U.S. Nativity	Native to U.S.
Federal T/E Status
National Wetland Indicator	FACU, FAC
Morphology/Physiology
Active Growth Period	Spring and Summer
After Harvest Regrowth Rate
Bloat	None
C:N Ratio	Medium
Coppice Potential	No
Fall Conspicuous	Yes
Fire Resistant	No
Flower Color	Yellow
Flower Conspicuous	No
Foliage Color	Green
Foliage Porosity Summer	Dense
Foliage Porosity Winter	Moderate
Foliage Texture	Medium
Fruit/Seed Color	Green
Fruit/Seed Conspicuous	Yes
Growth Form	Single Crown
Growth Rate	Rapid
Height at 20 Years, Maximum (feet)	35
Height, Mature (feet)	75
Known Allelopath	No
Leaf Retention	No
Lifespan	Moderate
Low Growing Grass	No
Nitrogen Fixation
Resprout Ability	Yes
Shape and Orientation	Rounded
Toxicity	None
Growth Requirements
Adapted to Coarse Textured Soils	No
Adapted to Fine Textured Soils	No
Adapted to Medium Textured Soils	Yes
Anaerobic Tolerance	None
CaCO3 Tolerance	Medium
Cold Stratification Required	No
Drought Tolerance	High
Fertility Requirement	Medium
Fire Tolerance	None
Frost Free Days, Minimum	180
Hedge Tolerance	Low
Moisture Use	Medium
pH, Minimum	6
pH, Maximum	8
Planting Density per Acre, Minimum	170
Planting Density per Acre, Maximum	700
Precipitation, Minimum	35
Precipitation, Maximum	70
Root Depth, Minimum (inches)	48
Salinity Tolerance	None
Shade Tolerance	Intolerant
Temperature, Minimum (°F)	-33
Reproduction
Bloom Period	Late Spring
Commercial Availability	Routinely Available
Fruit/Seed Abundance	High
Fruit/Seed Period Begin	Spring
Fruit/Seed Period End	Fall
Fruit/Seed Persistence	Yes
Propagated by Bare Root	Yes
Propagated by Bulb	No
Propagated by Container	Yes
Propagated by Corm	No
Propagated by Cuttings	No
Propagated by Seed	Yes
Propagated by Sod	No
Propagated by Sprigs	No
Propagated by Tubers	No
Seed per Pound	2800
Seed Spread Rate	Slow
Seedling Vigor	Medium
Small Grain	No
Vegetative Spread Rate	None
Suitability/Use
Berry/Nut/Seed Product	No
Christmas Tree Product	No
Fodder Product	No
Fuelwood Product	High
Lumber Product	No
Naval Store Product	No
Nursery Stock Product	No
Palatable Browse Animal	Low
Palatable Graze Animal	Low
Palatable Human	No
Post Product	Yes
Protein Potential	Low
Pulpwood Product	No
Veneer Product	No

Summary
Duration	Perennial
Growth Habit	Tree, Shrub
U.S. Nativity	Native to U.S.
Federal T/E Status
National Wetland Indicator	FACU, FAC
Morphology/Physiology
Active Growth Period	Spring and Summer
After Harvest Regrowth Rate
Bloat	None
C:N Ratio	High
Coppice Potential	Yes
Fall Conspicuous	Yes
Fire Resistant	No
Flower Color	Green
Flower Conspicuous	No
Foliage Color	Green
Foliage Porosity Summer	Moderate
Foliage Porosity Winter	Porous
Foliage Texture	Fine
Fruit/Seed Color	Brown
Fruit/Seed Conspicuous	Yes
Growth Form	Single Stem
Growth Rate	Moderate
Height at 20 Years, Maximum (feet)	35
Height, Mature (feet)	75
Known Allelopath	No
Leaf Retention	No
Lifespan	Moderate
Low Growing Grass	No
Nitrogen Fixation
Resprout Ability	Yes
Shape and Orientation	Erect
Toxicity	None
Growth Requirements
Adapted to Coarse Textured Soils	Yes
Adapted to Fine Textured Soils	Yes
Adapted to Medium Textured Soils	Yes
Anaerobic Tolerance	Low
CaCO3 Tolerance	Low
Cold Stratification Required	No
Drought Tolerance	High
Fertility Requirement	Low
Fire Tolerance	None
Frost Free Days, Minimum	90
Hedge Tolerance	None
Moisture Use	Low
pH, Minimum	6
pH, Maximum	8.5
Planting Density per Acre, Minimum	108
Planting Density per Acre, Maximum	700
Precipitation, Minimum	20
Precipitation, Maximum	80
Root Depth, Minimum (inches)	20
Salinity Tolerance	Low
Shade Tolerance	Intolerant
Temperature, Minimum (°F)	-38
Reproduction
Bloom Period	Late Spring
Commercial Availability	Routinely Available
Fruit/Seed Abundance	Medium
Fruit/Seed Period Begin	Summer
Fruit/Seed Period End	Fall
Fruit/Seed Persistence	Yes
Propagated by Bare Root	Yes
Propagated by Bulb	No
Propagated by Container	Yes
Propagated by Corm	No
Propagated by Cuttings	Yes
Propagated by Seed	Yes
Propagated by Sod	No
Propagated by Sprigs	No
Propagated by Tubers	No
Seed per Pound	2800
Seed Spread Rate	Slow
Seedling Vigor	Medium
Small Grain	No
Vegetative Spread Rate	None
Suitability/Use
Berry/Nut/Seed Product	No
Christmas Tree Product	No
Fodder Product	No
Fuelwood Product	High
Lumber Product	Yes
Naval Store Product	No
Nursery Stock Product	Yes
Palatable Browse Animal	Low
Palatable Graze Animal	Low
Palatable Human	No
Post Product	Yes
Protein Potential
Pulpwood Product	Yes
Veneer Product	No

 

Kingdom  Plantae -- Plants

Subkingdom  Tracheobionta -- Vascular plants

Superdivision  Spermatophyta -- Seed plants

Division  Magnoliophyta -- Flowering plants

Class  Magnoliopsida -- Dicotyledons

Subclass  Rosidae

Order  Fabales

Family  Fabaceae -- Pea family

Genus  Gleditsia L. -- locust P

Species  Gleditsia triacanthos L. -- honeylocust P

 

Alternate common names

Common honey-locust, honey-shucks locust . honeylocust, honey locust

 

Uses

Honey-locust is widely planted as a hardy and fast-growing ornamental.  It is often used in extreme urban stress areas such as parking lot islands and sidewalk tree squares and has been planted for erosion control, for windbreaks and shelterbelts, and as a vegetation pioneer for rehabilitation of strip-mine spoil banks.  Because of the small leaflets and open crown, the trees cast a light shade that permits shade-tolerant turfgrass and partial-shade perennials to grow underneath.  Cultivars have been selected for crown shape and branch angles and leaf color, and most are both thornless and fruitless.  Over-use of honey-locust in cities has led to recommendations that its use be discouraged until adequate biodiversity is restored. 

 

Honey-locust wood is dense, hard, coarse-grained, strong, stiff, shock-resistant, takes a high polish, and is durable in contact with soil.  It has been used locally for pallets, crates, general construction, furniture, interior finish, turnery, firewood, railroad ties, and posts (fence posts may sprout to form living fences), but it is too scarce to be of economic importance.  The wood also was formerly valued for bows.

 

The geographic range of honey-locust probably was extended by Indians who dried the legumes, ground the dried pulp, and used it as a sweetener and thickener, although the pulp also is reported to be irritating to the throat and somewhat toxic.  Fermenting the pulp can make a potable or energy alcohol.  Native Americans sometimes ate cooked seeds, they have also been roasted and used as a coffee substitute. 

 

Honey-locust pods are eaten by cattle, goats, deer, opossum, squirrel, rabbits, quail, crows, and starling.  White-tailed deer and rabbits eat the soft bark of young trees in winter, and livestock and deer eat young vegetative growth.  Honey-locust is planted around wildlife plots and into pastures and hayfields to provide high-protein mast.  Cattle do not digest the seeds, but sheep do.  

 

Status

Please consult the PLANTS Web site and your State Department of Natural Resources for this plant’s current status, such as, state noxious status and wetland indicator values.

 

Description

General: Pea Family (Fabaceae).  Native trees growing to 20 meters tall, with an open crown, armed with thick-branched thorns to 20 cm long on the main trunk and lower branches.  Bark blackish to grayish-brown, with smooth, elongate, plate-like patches separated by furrows.  Leaves are deciduous, alternate, pinnately or bipinnately compound, 10-20 cm long, often with 3-6 pairs of side branches; leaflets paired, oblong, 1-3 cm long, shiny and dark green above, turning a showy yellow in the fall, typically dropping early.  Flowers are greenish-yellow, fragrant, small and numerous in hanging clusters 5-13 cm long, mostly either staminate (male) or pistillate (female), these usually borne on separate trees, but some perfect flowers (male plus female) on each tree (the species polygamo-dioecious).  Fruits are flattened and strap-like pods 15-40 cm long and 2.5-3.5 cm wide, dark brown at maturity, pendulous and usually twisted or spiraled, with a sticky, sweet, and flavorful pulp separating the seeds; seeds beanlike, about 1 cm long.  The common name "honey" is in reference to the sweet pulp of the fruits. 

 

Variation within the species: Gleditsia triacanthos var. inermis (L.) Schneid. (“inermis” means unarmed) is occasionally found wild, apparently more as a populational variant than what is generally given formal taxonomic status as a variety.  Such trees have provided stock for selection of some the thornless horticultural forms, but most of the latter are actually derived from buds or stem cuttings taken from the upper, thornless portions of physiologically mature trees thorny in the lower portions.  Scions taken from this area generally remain thornless.  Breeders also can control the sex of scions by selecting unisexual budwood for cuttings.  Certain branches bear only one type of flower, and trees from cuttings of those branches will bear only that type.

 

Southern races of the species produce fruit more nutritious for stock feeding than northern races. 

 

Natural hybridization between honey-locust and water-locust (Gleditsia aquatica) produces Gleditsia X texana Sarg., the Texas honey-locust. 

 

Distribution

Honey-locust is essentially Midwestern in distribution, from the west slope of Appalachians to the eastern edge of Great Plains -- scattered in the east-central US from central Pennsylvania westward to southeastern South Dakota, south to central and southeastern Texas, east to southern Alabama, then northeasterly through Alabama to western Maryland.  Outlying populations occur in northwestern Florida, west Texas, and west central Oklahoma.  It is naturalized east to the Appalachians from South Carolina north to Pennsylvania, New York, and New England and Nova Scotia; sometimes a weed tree in India, New Zealand, and South Africa.  For current distribution, please consult the Plant Profile page for this species on the PLANTS Web site. 

 

Establishment

Adaptation: Honey-locust occurs on well-drained sites, upland woodlands and borders, rocky hillsides, old fields, fence rows, river floodplains, hammocks, and rich, moist bottomlands.  It is most commonly found on moist, fertile soils near streams and lakes.  It is tolerant of flooding and also is drought-resistant and somewhat tolerant of salinity.  On bottomlands, it is a pioneer tree.  On limestone uplands, it is an invader of rocky glades and abandoned farm fields and pastures.  It is generally found below 760 meters, but up to 1500 meters in a few places.  Flowering: May-June; fruiting: September-October, sometimes remaining on the tree through February.   

 

General: Seed production begins on honey-locust trees at about 10 years and continues until about age 100, with optimum production at about 25-75 years of age.  Some seed usually is produced every year but large crops usually occur every other year.  The seeds are viable for long periods because of a thick, impermeable seed coat.  Under natural conditions, individual seeds become permeable at different periods following maturation so that germination is spread over several years.  The seeds are dispersed by birds and mammals, including cattle, which eat the fruits, and buffalo may have been historically important dispersal agents of the seeds.  Germinability apparently is enhanced by passage through the digestive tract of animals.  Honey-locust also reproduces from stump and root sprouts.

 

Honey-locust is generally shade-intolerant and reproduction is primarily in open areas, gaps, and at the edges of woods.  The ability of honey-locust to invade prairie and rangeland is thought to be related to its tolerance of xeric conditions.  Growth is rapid and trees live to a maximum of about 125 years. 

 

Management

The only serious disease of honey-locust is a canker, which is occasionally fatal, but trees in landscape plantings may be damaged by a number of pests and pathogens.  Damage to young honey-locust also may be caused by rabbits gnawing the bark and by browsing of livestock and deer. 

 

Honey-locust is easily injured by fire because of its thin bark, but it sprouts after top-kill by fire.  It appears to be excluded from prairies by frequent fire.  Infrequent fires may create openings for reproduction in bottomland forests.  Honey-locust is not a nitrogen fixer. 

 

Cultivars, Improved and Selected Materials (and area of origin)

Contact your local Natural Resources Conservation Service (formerly Soil Conservation Service) office for more information.  Look in the phone book under ”United States Government.”  The Natural Resources Conservation Service will be listed under the subheading “Department of Agriculture.”  These plant materials are readily available from commercial sources.

 

References

Blair, R.M. 1990.  Gleditsia triacanthos.  Pp. 358-364, IN: R.M. Burns and B.H. Honkala.  Silvics of North America. Volume 2.  Hardwoods.  USDA Forest Service Agric. Handbook 654, Washington, D.C.  <https://willow.ncfes.umn.edu/silvics_manual/Table_of_contents.htm>

 

Dirr, M.A. 1974.  Tolerance of honeylocust seedlings to soil-applied salts.  Hortscience 9:53-54.

 

Duke, J.A. 1983.  Handbook of energy crops.  Unpublished.  Center for New Crops & Plant Products, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana. <https://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/duke_energy/Gleditsia_triacanthos.html>

 

Gordon, D. 1966.  A revision of the genus Gleditsia (Leguminosae).  Ph.D. diss., Indiana Univ., Bloomington, Indiana. 

 

Halverson, H.G. & D.F. Potts 1981.  Water requirements of honey locust (Gleditsia triacanthos f. inermis) in the urban forest.  USDA Forest Service, Res. Pap. NE-487. 

 

Michener, D.C. 1986.  Phenotypic instability in Gleditsia triacanthos (Fabaceae).  Brittonia 38:360-361.  

 

Potts, D.F. & L.P. Herrington 1982.  Drought resistance adaptations in urban honeylocust.  J. Arboric. 8:75-80.  

 

Robertson, K.R. & Y.T. Lee 1976.  The genera of Caesalpinioideae in the southeastern United States.  J. Arnold Arbor. 57:1-34.

 

Schnabel, A. & J.L. Hamrick 1995.  Understanding the population genetic structure of Gleditsia triacanthos L.: The scale and pattern of pollen gene flow.  Evolution 49:921-931.

 

Smith, G.C. & E.G. Brennan 1984.  Response of honeylocust cultivars to air pollution stress in an urban environment.  J. Arboric. 10:289-293. 

 

Sullivan, J. 1994.  Gleditsia triacanthos.  IN: W.C. Fischer (compiler). The fire effects information system [database].  USDA, Forest Service, Intermountain Research Station, Intermountain Fire Sciences Laboratory, Missoula, Montana.  <https://www.fs.fed.us/database/feis/>

 

USDA, NRCS 1993.  Northeast wetland flora: Field office guide to plant species.  Wetland Science Institute, Laurel, Maryland.

 

Wilson, A.A. 1991.  Browse agroforestry using honeylocust.  Forestry Chronicle. 67:232-235. 

 

Prepared By

Guy Nesom

BONAP, North Carolina Botanical Garden, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina

 

Species Coordinator

Gerald Guala

USDA, NRCS, National Plant Data Center, Baton Rouge, Louisiana

 

Edited: 05dec00 jsp; 03feb03ahv

 

For more information about this and other plants, please contact your local NRCS field office or Conservation District, and visit the PLANTS Web site<https://plants.usda.gov> or the Plant Materials Program Web site <https://Plant-Materials.nrcs.usda.gov>

 

 

 

Attribution:  U.S. Department of Agriculture