1.
Honey
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Honey /ˈhʌni/ is a sugary food substance produced and stored by certain social hymenopteran insects. It is produced from the secretions of plants or insects, such as floral nectar or aphid honeydew, through regurgitation, enzymatic activity. The variety of honey produced by bees is the most well-known, due to its worldwide commercial production. Honey gets its sweetness from the monosaccharides fructose and glucose, and has about the relative sweetness as granulated sugar. It has attractive properties for baking and a distinctive flavor that leads some people to prefer it to sugar. Most microorganisms do not grow in honey, so sealed honey does not spoil, however, honey sometimes contains dormant endospores of the bacterium Clostridium botulinum, which can be dangerous to babies, as it may result in botulism. People who have an immune system should not eat honey because of the risk of bacterial or fungal infection. Although some evidence indicates honey may be effective in treating diseases and other conditions, such as wounds and burns. Providing 64 calories in a serving of one tablespoon equivalent to 1272 kj per 100 g. Honey is generally safe, but may have various, potential adverse effects or interactions with excessive consumption, existing disease conditions, or drugs. Honey use and production have a long and varied history as an ancient activity, depicted in Valencia, in cold weather or when other food sources are scarce, adult and larval bees use stored honey as food. By contriving for bee swarms to nest in man-made hives, people have been able to semidomesticate the insects, Bee digestive enzymes - invertase, amylase, and diastase - and gastric acid hydrolyze sucrose to a mixture of glucose and fructose. The bees work together as a group with the regurgitation and digestion for as long as 20 minutes until the product reaches storage quality. It is then placed in honeycomb cells left unsealed while still high in content and natural yeasts. The bees then cap the cells with wax to seal them, as removed from the hive by a beekeeper, honey has a long shelf life and will not ferment if properly sealed. Another source of honey is from a number of species, such as the wasps Brachygastra lecheguana and Brachygastra mellifica. These species are known to feed on nectar and produce honey, Honey is collected from wild bee colonies, or from domesticated beehives. The honey is stored in honeycombs, wild bee nests are sometimes located by following a honeyguide bird
2.
Nectar
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Common nectar-consuming pollinators include mosquitoes, hoverflies, wasps, bees, butterflies and moths, hummingbirds, and bats. M. scutellata and the honey bee. Nectar is an important item, the sugar source for honey. It is also useful in agriculture and horticulture because the adult stages of some predatory insects feed on nectar, for example, the social wasp species Apoica flavissima relies on nectar as a primary food source. In turn, these wasps then hunt agricultural pest insects as food for their young, for example, thread-waisted wasps are known for hunting caterpillars that are destructive to crops. Caterpillars however, do eventually become butterflies and moths, which are important pollinators. Nectar secretion increases as the flower is visited by pollinators, after pollination, the nectar is frequently reabsorbed into the plant. Nectar is derived from Greek nektar, the drink of the gods. The current meaning, sweet liquid in flowers, is first recorded in AD1600, floral nectaries are generally located at the base of the perianth, so pollinators are made to brush the flowers reproductive structures, the stamen and pistil, while accessing the nectar. A septal nectary is nectar-producing tissue that is found in the wall of a plant ovary, septal nectaries function as a way of attracting pollinators. Plants that rely on insects, birds, or bats for pollination often have septal nectaries, aside from attracting pollinators, septal nectaries have also been known to attract plant protectors. Some plants, like Ruellia radicans, have nectaries that continue to secrete nectar even after the petals have been shed and this attracts ants which will in turn protect the developing fruits of the plant from seed predators and herbivores in exchange for nectar. Extrafloral nectaries are nectar-secreting plant glands that develop outside of flowers and are not involved in pollination and they are highly diverse in form, location, size, and mechanism. They have been described in virtually all above-ground plant parts—including leaves, petioles, stipules, cotyledons, fruits and they range from single-celled trichomes to complex cup-like structures that may or may not be vascularized. In contrast to floral nectaries, nectar produced outside the flower generally have a defensive function, the nectar attracts predatory insects which will eat both the nectar and any plant-eating insects around, thus functioning as bodyguards. Foraging predatory insects show a preference for plants with extrafloral nectaries, particularly species of ants and wasps. Among passion flowers, for example, extrafloral nectaries prevent herbivores by attracting ants, in many carnivorous plants, extrafloral nectaries are also used to attract insect prey. Extrafloral nectaries were originally believed to simply be excretory in nature and their defensive functions were first recognized by the Italian botanist Federico Delpino in his important monograph Funzione mirmecofila nel regno vegetale
3.
Plant
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Plants are mainly multicellular, predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. The term is generally limited to the green plants, which form an unranked clade Viridiplantae. This includes the plants, conifers and other gymnosperms, ferns, clubmosses, hornworts, liverworts, mosses and the green algae. Green plants have cell walls containing cellulose and obtain most of their energy from sunlight via photosynthesis by primary chloroplasts and their chloroplasts contain chlorophylls a and b, which gives them their green color. Some plants are parasitic and have lost the ability to produce amounts of chlorophyll or to photosynthesize. Plants are characterized by sexual reproduction and alternation of generations, although reproduction is also common. There are about 300–315 thousand species of plants, of which the great majority, green plants provide most of the worlds molecular oxygen and are the basis of most of Earths ecologies, especially on land. Plants that produce grains, fruits and vegetables form humankinds basic foodstuffs, Plants play many roles in culture. They are used as ornaments and, until recently and in variety, they have served as the source of most medicines. The scientific study of plants is known as botany, a branch of biology, Plants are one of the two groups into which all living things were traditionally divided, the other is animals. The division goes back at least as far as Aristotle, who distinguished between plants, which generally do not move, and animals, which often are mobile to catch their food. Much later, when Linnaeus created the basis of the system of scientific classification. Since then, it has become clear that the plant kingdom as originally defined included several unrelated groups, however, these organisms are still often considered plants, particularly in popular contexts. When the name Plantae or plant is applied to a group of organisms or taxon. The evolutionary history of plants is not yet settled. Those which have been called plants are in bold, the way in which the groups of green algae are combined and named varies considerably between authors. Algae comprise several different groups of organisms which produce energy through photosynthesis, most conspicuous among the algae are the seaweeds, multicellular algae that may roughly resemble land plants, but are classified among the brown, red and green algae. Each of these groups also includes various microscopic and single-celled organisms
4.
Species
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In biology, a species is the basic unit of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is defined as the largest group of organisms in which two individuals can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. While this definition is often adequate, looked at more closely it is problematic, for example, with hybridisation, in a species complex of hundreds of similar microspecies, or in a ring species, the boundaries between closely related species become unclear. Other ways of defining species include similarity of DNA, morphology, all species are given a two-part name, a binomial. The first part of a binomial is the genus to which the species belongs, the second part is called the specific name or the specific epithet. For example, Boa constrictor is one of four species of the Boa genus, Species were seen from the time of Aristotle until the 18th century as fixed kinds that could be arranged in a hierarchy, the great chain of being. In the 19th century, biologists grasped that species could evolve given sufficient time, Charles Darwins 1859 book The Origin of Species explained how species could arise by natural selection. Genes can sometimes be exchanged between species by horizontal transfer, and species may become extinct for a variety of reasons. In his biology, Aristotle used the term γένος to mean a kind, such as a bird or fish, a kind was distinguished by its attributes, for instance, a bird has feathers, a beak, wings, a hard-shelled egg, and warm blood. A form was distinguished by being shared by all its members, Aristotle believed all kinds and forms to be distinct and unchanging. His approach remained influential until the Renaissance, when observers in the Early Modern period began to develop systems of organization for living things, they placed each kind of animal or plant into a context. Many of these early delineation schemes would now be considered whimsical, animals likewise that differ specifically preserve their distinct species permanently, one species never springs from the seed of another nor vice versa. In the 18th century, the Swedish scientist Carl Linnaeus classified organisms according to shared physical characteristics and he established the idea of a taxonomic hierarchy of classification based upon observable characteristics and intended to reflect natural relationships. At the time, however, it was widely believed that there was no organic connection between species, no matter how similar they appeared. However, whether or not it was supposed to be fixed, by the 19th century, naturalists understood that species could change form over time, and that the history of the planet provided enough time for major changes. Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, in his 1809 Zoological Philosophy, described the transmutation of species, proposing that a species could change over time, in 1859, Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace provided a compelling account of evolution and the formation of new species. Darwin argued that it was populations that evolved, not individuals and this required a new definition of species. Darwin concluded that species are what appear to be, ideas
5.
Citrus
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Citrus is a genus of flowering trees and shrubs in the rue family, Rutaceae. Plants in the genus produce citrus fruits, including important crops like oranges, lemons, grapefruit, pomelo, the most recent research indicates an origin in Australia, New Caledonia and New Guinea. Citrus fruit has been cultivated in an area since ancient times. At various times, citrus plants were thought to be native to Asia, Europe, but the European oranges were originally brought from India at around the time of Alexander the Great, and the native oranges of Florida actually originated with the Spanish Conquistadors. The lemon reached Europe during the time of classical Rome, the generic name originated from Latin, where it referred to either the plant now known as Citron or a conifer tree. It is somehow related to the ancient Greek word for cedar and this may be due to perceived similarities in the smell of citrus leaves and fruit with that of cedar. Collectively, Citrus fruits and plants are known by the Romance loanword agrumes. The large citrus fruit of today evolved originally from small, edible berries over millions of years, Citrus plants diverged from a common ancestor about 15 million years ago, which was about when it diverged from the closely related severinia, for example the Chinese box orange. These estimates are made using genetic mapping of plant chloroplasts, the three original species in the citrus genus that have been hybridized into most modern commercial citrus fruit are the mandarin orange, pummelo, and citron. Within the last few years, all common citrus fruits were created by crossing those original species. Something similar has occurred with the array of chili peppers originating in the hybridization of a few initial species. Natural and cultivated citrus hybrids include commercially important fruit such as oranges, grapefruit, lemons, limes, apart from these four core citrus species, there are Australian limes and the recently discovered Mangshanyegan. Kumquats and Clymenia sp. are now considered to belong within the citrus genus. Trifoliate orange, which is used as commercial rootstock, is an outgroup. Phylogenetic analysis suggests the species of Oxanthera from New Caledonia should be transferred to the genus Citrus and these plants are large shrubs or small to moderate-sized trees, reaching 5–15 m tall, with spiny shoots and alternately arranged evergreen leaves with an entire margin. The flowers are solitary or in corymbs, each flower 2–4 cm diameter, with five white petals and numerous stamens. The fruit is a hesperidium, a berry, globose to elongated, 4–30 cm long and 4–20 cm diameter. The outermost layer of the pericarp is a called the flavedo
6.
Beekeeper
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A beekeeper is a person who keeps honey bees. Beekeepers also use honeybees to provide services to fruit and vegetable growers. Many people keep bees as a hobby, others do it for income either as a sideline to other work or as a commercial operator. These factors affect the number of colonies maintained by the beekeeper, Beekeepers are also called honey farmers, apiarists, or less commonly, apiculturists. The term beekeeper refers to a person who keeps honey bees in beehives, boxes, Honey bees are not domesticated and the beekeeper does not control the creatures. The beekeeper owns the hives or boxes and associated equipment, the bees are free to forage or leave as they desire. Bees usually return to the hive as the hive presents a clean, dark. These people typically work or own only a few hives and their main attraction is an interest in ecology and natural science. Honey is a by-product of this hobby, a sideline beekeeper attempts to make a profit keeping bees but relies on another source of income. Sideliners may operate up to as many as 300 colonies of bees, commercial beekeepers control hundreds or thousands of colonies of bees. The most extensive own and operate up to 50,000 colonies of bees, the first major commercial beekeeper was probably Petro Prokopovych of Ukraine, operating 6600 colonies in the early 19th century. Moses Quinby was the first commercial beekeeper in the USA, with 1200 colonies by the 1840s, later, Jim Powers of Idaho, USA, had 30,000 honey producing hives. Miel Carlota operated by partners Arturo Wulfrath and Juan Speck of Mexico operated at least 50,000 hives of bees from 1920 to 1960. Today, Adee Honey Farm in South Dakota, USA, and Scandia Honey Company in Alberta, worldwide, commercial beekeepers number about 5% of the individuals with bees but produce about 60% of the worlds honey crop. Most beekeepers produce commodities for sale, Honey is the most valuable commodity sold by beekeepers. Honey-producer beekeepers try to maintain colonies of bees in areas with dense nectar sources. They produce and sell liquid and sometimes comb honey, Beekeepers may sell their commodities retail, as self-brokers, or through commercial packers and distributors. Beeswax, pollen, royal jelly, and propolis may also be significant revenue generators, taiwanese beekeepers, for example, export tonnes of royal jelly, the high-nutrition food supplement fed to queen honeybees
7.
Harvest
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Harvesting is the process of gathering a ripe crop from the fields. Reaping is the cutting of grain or pulse for harvest, typically using a scythe, sickle, on smaller farms with minimal mechanization, harvesting is the most labor-intensive activity of the growing season. On large mechanized farms, harvesting utilizes the most expensive and sophisticated farm machinery, the term harvesting in general usage may include immediate postharvest handling, including cleaning, sorting, packing, and cooling. Harvest, a noun, came from the Old English word hærfest, meaning autumn, harvest-time, the harvest came to also mean the activity of reaping, gathering, and storing grain and other grown products during the autumn, and also the grain and other grown products themselves. Harvest was also verbified, To harvest means to reap, gather, people who harvest and equipment that harvests are harvesters, while they do it, they are harvesting. In history, crop failures and subsequent famines have triggered human migration, rural exodus, over years, unsustainable farming of land degrades soil fertility and diminishes crop yield. With a steadily growing population and local overpopulation, even slightly diminishing yields are already the equivalent to a partial harvest failure. Fortunately, fertilizers obviate the need for regeneration in the first place. Harvesting commonly refers to grain and produce, but also has other uses, the term harvest is also used in reference to harvesting grapes for wine. Within the context of irrigation, water harvesting refers to the collection, instead of harvest, the term exploit is also used, as in exploiting fisheries or water resources. Energy harvesting is the process of capturing and storing energy that would otherwise go unexploited, body harvesting, or cadaver harvesting, is the process of collecting and preparing cadavers for anatomical study. In a similar sense, organ harvesting is the removal of tissues or organs from a donor for purposes of transplanting. Harvesting or Domestic Harvesting in Canada refers to hunting, fishing, and plant gathering by First Nations, Métis, for example, in the Gwichin Comprehensive Land Claim Agreement, Harvesting means gathering, hunting, trapping or fishing. Similarly, in the Tlicho Land Claim and Self Government Agreement, Harvesting means, in relation to wildlife, hunting, trapping or fishing and, in relation to plants or trees, combine Harvester Harvest Harvest festival Overharvesting Threshing Winnowing
8.
Appalachian Mountains
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The Appalachian Mountains, often called the Appalachians, are a system of mountains in eastern North America. The Appalachians first formed roughly 480 million years ago during the Ordovician Period and it once reached elevations similar to those of the Alps and the Rocky Mountains before naturally occurring erosion. The Appalachian chain is a barrier to east-west travel, as it forms a series of alternating ridgelines, definitions vary on the precise boundaries of the Appalachians. A common variant definition does not include the Adirondack Mountains, which belong to the Grenville Orogeny and have a different geological history from the rest of the Appalachians. The range covers parts of the islands of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, the system is divided into a series of ranges, with the individual mountains averaging around 3,000 ft. The highest of the group is Mount Mitchell in North Carolina at 6,684 feet, the term Appalachian refers to several different regions associated with the mountain range. Most broadly, it refers to the mountain range with its surrounding hills. The Ouachita Mountains in Arkansas and Oklahoma were originally part of the Appalachians as well, the name was soon altered by the Spanish to Apalachee and used as a name for the tribe and region spreading well inland to the north. Pánfilo de Narváezs expedition first entered Apalachee territory on June 15,1528, now spelled Appalachian, it is the fourth-oldest surviving European place-name in the US. After the de Soto expedition in 1540, Spanish cartographers began to apply the name of the tribe to the mountains themselves. The first cartographic appearance of Apalchen is on Diego Gutierrezs map of 1562, the name was not commonly used for the whole mountain range until the late 19th century. A competing and often more popular name was the Allegheny Mountains, Alleghenies, in the early 19th century, Washington Irving proposed renaming the United States either Appalachia or Alleghania. In U. S. dialects in the regions of the Appalachians. In northern parts of the range, it is pronounced /ˌæpəˈleɪtʃᵻnz/ or /ˌæpəˈleɪʃᵻnz/, the third syllable is like lay. There is often debate between the residents of the regions as to which pronunciation is the more correct one. Elsewhere, a commonly accepted pronunciation for the adjective Appalachian is /ˌæpəˈlætʃiən/, the whole system may be divided into three great sections, Northern, The northern section runs from the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador to the Hudson River. The Monteregian Hills, which cross the Green Mountains in Quebec, are also unassociated with the Appalachians, Central, The central section goes from the Hudson Valley to the New River running through Virginia and West Virginia. Southern, The southern section runs from the New River onwards and it consists of the prolongation of the Blue Ridge, which is divided into the Western Blue Ridge Front and the Eastern Blue Ridge Front, the Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians, and the Cumberland Plateau
9.
Oxydendrum
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Sourwood or sorrel tree, Oxydendrum arboreum, /ˌɒksᵻˈdɛndrəm ɑːrˈbɔəriəm/ is the sole species in the genus Oxydendrum, in the family Ericaceae. It is native to eastern North America, from southern Pennsylvania south to northwest Florida and west to southern Illinois, the tree is frequently seen as a component of oak-heath forests. Sourwood is a tree or large shrub, growing to 10–20 m tall with a trunk up to 50 cm diameter. Occasionally on extremely productive sites, this species can reach heights in excess of 30 meters and 60 cm diameter. The leaves are arranged, deciduous, 8–20 cm long and 4–9 cm broad, with a finely serrated margin, they are dark green in summer. The flowers are white, bell-shaped, 6–9 mm long, produced on 15–25 cm long panicles, the fruit is a small woody capsule. The roots are shallow, and the tree grows best when there is little root competition, the leaves can be chewed to help alleviate a dry-feeling mouth. The bark is gray with a reddish tinge, deeply furrowed, branchlets at first are light yellow green, but later turn reddish brown. The wood is brown, with paler sapwood, it is heavy, hard, and close-grained. Its specific gravity is 0.7458, with a density of 46.48 lb/cu ft, the winter buds are axillary, minute, dark red, and partly immersed in the bark. Inner scales enlarge when spring growth begins, leaves are alternate, four to seven inches long,1.5 to 2.5 inches wide, oblong to ablanceolate, wedge-shaped at the base, serrate, and acute or acuminate. Leaf veins are Feather-veined, the midrib is conspicuous and they emerge from the bud revolute, bronze green and shining, and smooth, when full grown, they are dark green, shining above, and pale and glaucous below. In autumn, they turn bright scarlet, petioles are long and slender, with stipules wanting. They are heavily laden with acid, in June and July, perfect, cream-white flowers are borne in terminal panicles of secund racemes seven to eight inches long, rachis and short pedicels are downy. The calyx is five-parted and persistent, lobes are valvate in bud, the corolla is ovoid-cylindric, narrowed at the throat, cream-white, and five-toothed. The 10 stamens are inserted on the corolla, filaments are wider than the anthers, anthers are two-celled, the pistil is ovary superior, ovoid, and five-celled, the style is columnar, the stigma is simple, the disk is ten-toothed, and ovules are many. The fruit is a capsule, downy, five-valved, five-angled, and tipped by the persistent style, the sourwood is perfectly hardy in the north and a worthy ornamental tree in lawns and parks. Its late bloom makes it desirable, and its autumnal coloring is particularly beautiful, the leaves are heavily charged with acid, and to some extent have the poise of those of the peach
10.
Liriodendron
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Liriodendron /ˌlaɪriəˈdɛndrən, ˌlɪr-, -ioʊ-/ is a genus of two species of characteristically large deciduous trees in the magnolia family. These trees are known by the common name tulip tree or tuliptree for their large flowers superficially resembling tulips. The Latin Liriodendron actually means lily tree, the tree is also called canoewood, saddle-leaf tree, and white wood. Two species of Liriodendron are known to exist, Liriodendron tulipifera is native to eastern North America, while Liriodendron chinense is native to China and Vietnam. Both species often grow to great size, sometimes exceeding 50 m in height, the American species is commonly used horticulturally, and hybrids have been produced between these two allopatrically distributed species. Various extinct species of Liriodendron have been described from the fossil record, Liriodendron trees are easily recognized by their leaves, which are distinctive, having four lobes in most cases and a cross-cut notched or straight apex. Leaf size varies from 8–22 cm long and 6–25 cm wide, the tulip tree is often a large tree, 18–50 m high and 60–120 cm in diameter. The tulip tree grows to a height of 70–190 and a spread of around 40 at maturity and its trunk is usually columnar, with a long, branch-free bole forming a compact, rather than open, conical crown of slender branches. It has deep roots that spread widely, leaves are slightly larger in L. chinense, compared to L. tulipifera, but with considerable overlap between the species, the petiole is 4–18 cm long. Leaves on young trees tend to be more deeply lobed and larger in size than those on mature trees, in autumn, the leaves turn yellow, or brown and yellow. Both species grow rapidly in rich, moist soils of temperate climates and they hybridize easily, and the progeny often grow faster than either parent]. Flowers are 3–10 cm in diameter and have nine tepals — three green sepals and six inner petals which are yellow-green with an orange flare at the base. They start forming after around 15 years and are similar to a tulip in shape. Flowers of L. tulipifera have a faint cucumber odor, the stamens and pistils are arranged spirally around a central spike or gynaecium, the stamens fall off, and the pistils become the samaras. The fruit is an aggregate of samaras 4–9 cm long, each of which has a roughly tetrahedral seed with one edge attached to the central conical spike. Appalachian cove forests often contain several tulip trees of height and girth not seen in species of eastern hardwoods. In the Appalachian cove forests, trees 150 to 165 ft in height are common, more Liriodendron over 170 ft in height have been measured by the Eastern Native Tree Society than for any other eastern species. The current tallest tulip tree on record has reached 191.9 ft, the tulip tree is rivaled in eastern forests only by white pine, loblolly pine, and eastern hemlock
11.
Foraging
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Foraging is searching for wild food resources. It affects an animals fitness because it plays an important role in an ability to survive. Foraging theory is a branch of ecology that studies the foraging behavior of animals in response to the environment where the animal lives. Behavioral ecologists use economic models to understand foraging, many of these models are a type of optimality model, thus foraging theory is discussed in terms of optimizing a payoff from a foraging decision. The payoff for many of these models is the amount of energy an animal receives per unit time, more specifically, foraging theory predicts that the decisions that maximize energy per unit time and thus deliver the highest payoff will be selected for and persist. Behavioral ecologists first tackled this topic in the 1960s and 1970s and their goal was to quantify and formalize a set of models to test their null hypothesis that animals forage randomly. Learning is defined as a change or modification of a behavior based on a previous experience. Since an animals environment is changing, the ability to adjust foraging behavior is essential for maximization of fitness. Studies in social insects have shown there is a significant correlation between learning and foraging performance. In nonhuman primates, young individuals learn foraging behavior from their peers and elders by watching other group members forage, observing and learning from other members of the group ensure that the younger members of the group learn what is safe to eat and become proficient foragers. One measure of learning is foraging innovation—an animal consuming new food, foraging innovation is considered learning because it involves behavioral plasticity on the animals part. The animal recognizes the need to come up with a new foraging strategy, forebrain size has been associated with learning behavior. Animals with larger sizes are expected to learn better. A higher ability to innovate has been linked to larger sizes in North American. In this study, bird orders that contained individuals with larger forebrain sizes displayed a higher amount of foraging innovation, examples of innovations recorded in birds include following tractors and eating frogs or other insects killed by it and using swaying trees to catch their prey. Another measure of learning is learning, which refers to an individuals ability to associate the time of an event with the place of that event. This type of learning has been documented in the behaviors of individuals of the stingless bee species Trigona fulviventris. Foraging behavior can also be influenced by genetics, honey bee foraging activity occurs both inside and outside the hive for either pollen or nectar
12.
Robinia pseudoacacia
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Another common name is false acacia, a literal translation of the specific name It was introduced into Britain in 1636. The name locust is said to have given to Robinia by Jesuit missionaries, who fancied that this was the tree that supported St. John in the wilderness. The locust tree of Spain, which is native to Syria. Robinia is now a North American genus, but traces of it are found in the Eocene and Miocene rocks of Europe, black locust is an interesting example of how one plant can be considered an invasive species even on the same continent it is native to. For example, within the western United States, New England region, in the prairie and savanna regions of the Midwest black locust can dominate and shade open habitats. Black locust has been listed as invasive in Connecticut and prohibited in Massachusetts, in Australia black locust has become naturalized within Victoria, New South Wales, South, and Western Australia. It is considered an environmental weed there, in South Africa, it is regarded as a weed because of its habit suckering. Black locust reaches a height of 40–100 feet with a diameter of 2–4 feet. Exceptionally, it may grow up to 52 metres tall and 1.6 metres diameter in very old trees and it is a very upright tree with a straight trunk and narrow crown which grows scraggly with age. The dark blue-green compound leaves with a lighter underside give this tree a beautiful appearance in the wind. It also often spreads by underground shoots or suckers which contribute to the character of this species. Young trees are often spiny, however, mature trees often lack spines, in the early summer black locust flowers, the flowers are large and appear in large, intensely fragrant, clusters. The leaflets fold together in wet weather and at night as some change of position at night is a habit of the entire leguminous family and it may also resemble Styphnolobium japonicum which has smaller flower spikes and lacks spines. The bark is gray brown and tinged with red or orange in the grooves. It is deeply furrowed into grooves and ridges which run up and down the trunk and often cross, the roots of black locust contain nodules which allow it to fix nitrogen as is common within the pea family. The branches are typically zig-zagy and may have ridges and grooves or may be round, when young, they are at first coated with white silvery down, this soon disappears and they become pale green and afterward reddish or greenish brown. Prickles may or may not be present on young trees, root suckers, R. pseudoacacia is quite variable in the quantity and amount of prickles present as some trees are densely prickly and other trees have no prickles at all. The prickles typically remain on the tree until the young thin bark to which they are attached is replaced by the thicker mature bark and they develop from stipules and since stipules are paired at the base of leaves, the prickles will be paired at the bases of leaves
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