Common Name:
HONEY LOCUST
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Coefficient of Conservatism:
8
Coefficient of Wetness:
0
Wetness Index:
FAC
Physiognomy:
Nt Tree
B. S. Walters
Apparently indigenous on river banks, shores, floodplains, and lowland woods as far north as the Detroit, Huron, and Kalamazoo Rivers. Escaped by seeding and also by root suckers to natural habitats as well as filled land, vacant lots, roadsides, shores north well into the northern Lower Peninsula.
Though collected from along the Grand River before 1900, Cole (1901) noted that occurrences were all spread from cultivated trees. Thus, records mapped north of the southern three tiers of counties represent clear escapes, but a few of those farther south may also be based on escaped or even planted trees when label data with specimens are not clear. The stems of wild plants are typically fiercely armed with stout thorns, these compound on older branches and trunk.
This species, and Cercis canadensis, display cauliflory; inflorescences arising from the trunk and older branches, a feature typically associated with tropical trees.