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Where I grew up, we also called them bois d'arc (i.e., "bow dark") trees. Strange that Texas went for the bowdlerized French name, rather than straight-up "horse apple."
in southwestern Ohio local vernacular those were called "Osage Oranges". They used the plants (a tall, thorny shrub / small tree) as windbreaks and animal hedges in the olden days around the area I grew up in. When planted in windrows or along fence lines, they create a dense, very thorny thicket about 15 feet high.
The fruits make a damn fine projectile weapon for bored kids too, might I add...
definitely osage orange. They were planted prodigiously as windbreaks in the 18th & 19th centuries. The squirrels love the fruit. The ones growing around St. Louis, Missouri, however, are trees of 40+ feet in height.
Osage (AHH-sedge) orange for me, too. Grew up in Chicago and northern suburbs. We had a bunch of osage orange trees near our house for a while, and my mother used to gather the fruits to feed to the horses who lodged nearby. They very much liked them.
photo by splunge
photo by TheophileEscargot
photo by Kronos_to_Earth
photo by ethylene
