Allegheny Mountain Woodland Association

Black Locust

Common Name	Black Locust
Also Known As	Locust, Common Locust,
Scientific Name	Robinia pseudoacacia
Champion Trees	Cambria County Champion Submitted by: Robert Magley Location: Ebensburg Circumference:174 inches Height: 56 feet Average Spread: 45 feet Points: 241 Pennsylvania Champion Points: 333 (see Champion Trees of Pennsylvania for details) National Champion Points: 423 (see American Forests - National Register of Big Trees for details)

Form

Form

A medium sized tree usually 30-45 feet high with a diameter of 1-1 1/2 feet, but may reach a height of 75 feet with a diameter of 2 - 2 1/2 feet. Forest grown specimens are often straight, clean, and free from branches for 3/4 of the height of the tree. Open grown specimens usually branch low. Crown usually narrow, oblong, and open.

Bark

Bark	On both young and old trunks rough, reddish brown, deeply furrowed, with high rather rounded ridges, which do not peel off in scales; sometimes 1 1/2 inches in thickness.

Twigs

Twigs

Rather stout, britttle, more or less zigzag, round to angular in cross section, sometimes ridged, greenish to reddish brown; often bearing two spines at a node, covered with a few pale lenticels; pith white and often angular.

Buds

Buds	Alternate; terminal one absent; small, 3-4 superposed, imbedded in twig under leaf scar in a rusty, somewhat hairy cavity. Their position is barely visible in winter but becomes evident in spring when growth starts.

Leaves

Leaves

Alternate, compound, 8-14 inches long; petioles slender, grooved on top, and swollen at the base. Leaflets odd in number and stalked, ovate to oblong, 7-21 in number, 1-2 inches long, usually rounded at apex and base, entire on margin.

Flowers

Flowers

Appear about May after leaves or occasionally before, resembling the blossom of a pea. Perfect, cream-white, about an inch across, fragrant, borne on slender stalks about 1/2 inch long, arranged in loose drooping racemes 4-5 inches long.

Fruit

Fruit

A small drak brown and thin pod, 2-4 inches long and 1/2 inch wide; usually containing from 4-8 small dark brown mottled seeds. The pods often persist far into winter.

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