On a little ride through my neighborhood, still working on my old Raleigh Technium, I saw that the Bois D’Arc trees were shedding their odd, green, brain-like convoluted, inedible, fruit. I’ve written of these before.
On a little ride through my neighborhood, still working on my old Raleigh Technium, I saw that the Bois D’Arc trees were shedding their odd, green, brain-like convoluted, inedible, fruit. I’ve written of these before.
Fantastical — nice!
Thanks!
Cool color on the first one.
Thanks, it was a cloudy day and the photos were too flat without processing – I’ve been experimenting with some filters in The Gimp (which I like better than Photoshop – especially the price). That one did come out kind of cool.
These are completely new to me. Are they just inedible to humans or all animals?
I have never seen them eaten by anything – so to be sure, I looked it up in Wikipedia – the answer is sort of interesting:
“The fruit has a pleasant and mild odor, but is inedible for the most part. Although it is not strongly poisonous, eating it may cause vomiting. However, the seeds of the fruit are edible. The fruit is sometimes torn apart by squirrels to get at the seeds, but few other native animals make use of it as a food source. This is unusual, as most large fleshy fruit serves the function of seed dispersal by means of its consumption by large animals. One recent hypothesis is that the Osage-orange fruit was eaten by a giant ground sloth that became extinct shortly after the first human settlement of North America.”
Food for a recently extinct giant ground sloth! How cool is that.
Wow. A recently extinct giant ground sloth. How many people would know about that? I’m guessing not many yet, thanks to your amazing photo [and research] there are now at least 2 more than there were. 😀
Isn’t it weird to think that the sloth died out yet its food source continues, as if just waiting for some new consumer to come along.
Thanks for a truly fascinating titbit.
I’ve always wondered what was up with those fruits. Great pictures.