Maclura pomifera
species of plant
Maclura pomifera, commonly known as the Osage orange ( OH-sayj), is a small deciduous tree or large shrub, native to the south-central United States. It is a member of the mulberry family, Moraceae. It typically grows about 8 to 15 m (30–50 ft) tall. The distinctive multiple fruit resembles an immature orange, is roughly spherical, bumpy, 8 to 15 cm (3–6 in) in diameter, and turns bright yellow-green in the fall. The fruit excretes a sticky white latex when cut or damaged. Despite the name "Osage orange", it is not related to the orange.
Due to its latex secretions and woody pulp, the fruit is not usually eaten by humans and rarely by foraging animals. Ecologists Daniel H. Janzen and Paul S. Martin proposed in 1982 that the fruit of this species might be an example of what has come to be called an evolutionary anachronism—that is, a fruit coevolved with a large animal seed dispersal partner that is now extinct. This hypothesis is controversial.
Maclura pomifera has many common names, including mock orange, horse apple, and hedge apple.
“Maclura pomifera” enters the record as species of plant. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Maclura, pomifera and species can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Maclura pomifera” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Maclura, pomifera and species provides the most credible route into that argument.
The date and method of observation matter as much as the stated conclusion, especially where classification or consensus has changed. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1066106. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1982.
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This entry incorporates text from “Maclura pomifera” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.