_An irregular growing, slender tree, 70 to 80 feet high, with very rough, deeply furrowed, often yellowish-looking bark. Slender twigs, with inconspicuous thorns. Small, alternate triangular leaf-scars, somewhat raised in the centre. The buds are superposed between the thorns, and are entirely hidden by the leaf-scars. Fruit a pea-shaped pod, four or five inches long._ The common locust is one of the few trees which is decidedly more attractive in summer than in winter. The delicate texture and tender green of the leaves and the pendulous racemes of white fragrant flowers make the whole beauty of this tree, and in winter it seems rough, straggling, and uncouth in its habit of growth, and utterly devoid of either strength or grace. The common locust glories in a wealth of summer sweetness and color, but in winter the absence of poise and symmetry in its branches and its colorless stems make it seem shapeless and dead. The wood is heavy and strong, and durable when it is placed in contact with the soil. It is used in ship-building and for posts. The bark is a tonic used in homœopathic remedies. [Illustration: COMMON LOCUST TREES _Robinia pseud-acacia_ Page 130 ] The name, _Robinia_, was given to this genus in honor of Jean Robin, a French botanist, and the gardener of Henry IV. of France. The specific name, _pseud-acacia_ (false acacia), arose from the supposition that this tree was a species of the Egyptian acacia from its prickly branches and pinnate leaves, which are like those of that tree. It was called “locust tree” by English missionaries who collected it first and fancied that it was the tree that nourished John the Baptist in the wilderness. It was one of the first American trees to attract attention in Europe, and it has been extensively cultivated there. The locust is not a native of New England, but it grows wild south of Pennsylvania and it is widely naturalized throughout the United States east of the Rocky Mountains. The clammy locust (_Robinia viscosa_) is a small tree or shrub easily distinguished from the common locust by its stems and young branches, which are clammy and sticky to the touch. It is a native of the mountains of North Carolina, and it has been extensively cultivated as far north as Eastern Massachusetts. The specific name, _viscosa_, is from the Latin adjective meaning full of birdlime, sticky, and refers to the peculiar clamminess of the stems. _Robinia hispida_, the rose acacia, is an ornamental shrub cultivated in gardens and found growing wild from Virginia southward. The specific name, _hispida_ (bristly), refers to the long bristles on the branches, leaves, and pods which distinguish this shrub from the other species of the genus. [Sidenote: Honey Locust _Gleditsia triacanthos_]