Gleditsia aquatica Marsh.

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Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Gleditsia aquatica' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/gleditsia/gleditsia-aquatica/). Accessed 2024-03-29.

Common Names

  • Water Locust

Synonyms

  • G. inermis Mill.
  • G. monosperma Walt.

Glossary

apex
(pl. apices) Tip. apical At the apex.
glabrous
Lacking hairs smooth. glabrescent Becoming hairless.
lanceolate
Lance-shaped; broadest in middle tapering to point.
leaflet
Leaf-like segment of a compound leaf.
imparipinnate
Odd-pinnate; (of a compound leaf) with a central rachis and an uneven number of leaflets due to the presence of a terminal leaflet. (Cf. paripinnate.)

References

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Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Gleditsia aquatica' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/gleditsia/gleditsia-aquatica/). Accessed 2024-03-29.

A tree described by Sargent as 50 to 60 ft high, with a trunk 2 to 212 ft in diameter, but in this country inclined to be shrubby, and to form several stems; spines ultimately about 4 in. long, branched; young shoots not downy, but marked with conspicuous lenticels. Leaves up to 8 in. long, simply or doubly pinnate; leaflets of the pinnate leaf (or of each division of the bipinnate ones) twelve to twenty-four. Each leaflet is lanceolate-oblong, 1 to 112 in. long, 14 to 12 in. wide, rounded, bluntish, or somewhat pointed at the apex, margins wavy, glossy and glabrous except for the down on the short stalk of the leaflet, on the upper side of the main-stalk, and scattered hairs on the margins of the leaflets. Flowers borne on slender racemes 3 or 4 in. long. Pods obliquely diamond-shaped, 134 in. long, nearly 1 in. wide, not pulpy inside; seeds solitary (rarely two).

Native of the south-eastern United States; introduced in 1723, according to Aiton, but now extremely rare. It is hardy at Kew, but grows slowly. Its small, one-seeded pod well distinguishes it, but so far as is known this has not been borne in cultivation here. The example now at Kew, about 35 ft high and branching at 4 ft, came from the Arnold Arboretum in 1892.