=Horticultural Value.=--Hardy throughout New England, grows in any well-drained soil, but prefers a deep, rich loam; transplants readily, grows rapidly, is long-lived, free from disease, and makes a picturesque object in ornamental plantations, but is objectionable in public places and highly finished grounds on account of the stiff spines, which are a source of danger to pedestrians, and also on account of the long strap-shaped pods, which litter the ground. There is a thornless form which is better adapted than the type for ornamental purposes. The type is sometimes offered in nurseries at a low price by the quantity. Propagated from seed. [Illustration: PLATE LXVI.--Gleditsia triacanthos.] 1. Winter buds. 2. Winter buds with thorns. 3. Flowering branch. 4. Sterile flower, enlarged. 5. Flowering branch, flowers mostly fertile. 6. Fertile flower, enlarged. 7. Fruiting branch. 8. Leaf partially twice pinnate. =Robinia Pseudacacia, L.= LOCUST. =Habitat and Range.=--In its native habitat growing upon mountain slopes, along the borders of forests, in rich soils. Naturalized from Nova Scotia to Ontario. Maine,--thoroughly at home, forming wooded banks along streams; New Hampshire,--abundant enough to be reckoned among the valuable timber trees; Vermont,--escaped from cultivation in many places; Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut,--common in patches and thickets and along the roadsides and fences. Native from southern Pennsylvania along the mountains to Georgia; west to Iowa and southward. =Habit.=--Mostly a small tree, 20-35 feet high, under favorable conditions reaching a height of 50-75 feet; trunk diameter 8 inches to 2 1/2 feet; lower branches thrown out horizontally or at a broad angle, forming a few-branched, spreading top, clothed with a tender green, delicate, tremulous foliage, and distinguished in early June by loose, pendulous clusters of white fragrant flowers. =Bark.=--Bark of trunk dark, rough and seamy even in young trees, and armed with stout prickles which disappear as the tree matures; in old trees coarsely, deeply, and firmly ridged, not flaky; larger branches a dull brown, rough; branchlets grayish-brown, armed with prickles; season's shoots green, more or less rough-dotted, thin, and often striped. =Winter Buds and Leaves.=--Winter buds minute, partially sunken within the leaf-scar. Leaves pinnately compound, alternate; petiole swollen at the base, covering bud of the next season; often with spines in the place of stipules; leaflets 7-21, opposite or scattered, 3/4-1-1/4 inches long, about half as wide, light green; outline ovate or oval-oblong; apex round or obtuse, tipped with a minute point; base truncate, rounded, obtuse or acutish; distinctly short-stalked; stipellate at first.