A LOCUST TREE ALONG THE RIVER

Rex Burress

Down by the riverside, near Bedrock Park, snuggled along the shore, is a grove of locust trees that stand stark and somber during the winter, but burst to life come spring with fragrant white blossoms and new deciduous leaves.

 

The dozen trees have stood together like alien visitors from outer space for years. Since they are not native to California, the seeds had to be planted by some means to account for their presence. I had called them commonly used “honey locust,” but in reviewing locust history, I discovered that two major species are native to only the eastern USA, but have been introduced all over the world.

 

Armed with new information, I scurried down to examine the identification of the locals, and to my surprise, nearly all of the ragged trees were dead! Only a small section of a tree had new growth, and even it had fallen against the bank, the accessible crown dry and twiggy with great numbers of last year's dark seed pods hanging like strips of dried salmon. The pods had cracked open revealing some brown seeds still clinging to their mother. I suspect that last year's massive flood had affected their root structure, as it is stated the tree is resistant to rot and disease, and one of the hardest woods in the world, once made into nails to hold ships together.

 

Most importantly, I found the species to be Black Locust, (Robinia pseudoacacia), instead of Honey Locust, (Gleditsia triacanthos), although the two are quite similar. Both have fragrant, pea-family blossoms, but the black locust flowers are very white with a yellow blotch in the middle, and most revealing are two sharp thorns at each leaf base. A locust leaf is pinnately compound, composed of a number of leaflets like black walnut. Gleditsia is thornier on the trunk. Black locust also has toxic leaves, bark, and roots, but the seeds and blossoms are edible.

 

A locust tree was what launched John Muir into a botanical life searching for plants and the wonders of nature. At the University of Wisconsin, a fellow student was talking to him about pea-family species, indicating that the locust and the sweet pea were in the same family. Muir was so struck in realizing that revelation that he dashed off into the fields, examining blossoms, and rejoicing over his new-found discovery. He particularly found trees fascinating, fighting for redwoods in California, and finally ending his travels with a six-month steamship trip to see monkey-puzzle trees in South America and baobab trees in Africa in their natural habitat.

 

A particular grove of locusts grew on my Uncle John's Missouri farm, between the house, windmill, and the leaning barn. They were the only trees on that lonely hilltop where my four cousins were raised, and I remember the introduced starlings that nested in the old woodpecker holes. English Sparrows and European pigeons occupied the barn, as if that alien trio were hungry for homes and human company!

 

Those Tolle locusts stood like a wind-break squadron defending the farm from intruding storms that were sometimes laced with tornadoes. At least the exposed, old gray, two-story house stayed staunch while occupied with family long-since dispersed to all parts of the country. Only the windmill and perhaps some of the trees remain, although locust only have a life-span of about 120 years.

 

The sweet aroma of the scented pea-pod flower structures in spring is quite memorable, and the grove along the Feather River, far away from Missouri, gives me a whiff of homey flavor from the homelands.

 

--Louise Bogan