Vascular Plants of North Carolina
Account for Osage-orange - Maclura pomifera   (Rafinesque) C.K. Schneider
Members of Moraceae:
Only member of Maclura in NC.
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Section 6 » Order Urticales » Family Moraceae
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Author(Rafinesque) C.K. Schneider
DistributionScattered in the Mountains and Piedmont; disjunct to the Outer Banks of Carteret County.

Apparently native to a restricted area of AR-LA-TX-OK; but early cultivated and moved around, and thus its original range is not crystal-clear.
AbundanceRare.
HabitatStream floodplains, woods near lakeshore, thickets by brackish marshes, railroad, pine plantation, distubed woods, near old homesites.
PhenologyFlowering April-June; fruiting in fall.
IdentificationOsage-orange has very distinctive and large, spherical, warty yellow-green fruits, the size of baseballs. Otherwise it is an indistinctive small tree, except for long spines/thorns along the branches. Leaves are alternate, ovate to elliptical and with a long drip-tip.
Taxonomic CommentsWeakley (2018) states that M. tricuspidata Carriere is locally naturalized in Orange County, but we have not seen corroborating specimens.

Other Common Name(s)
State RankSE
Global RankG4G5
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