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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
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This fall is golden--gold all around: hickories, locusts, sycamores. I've never seen so much gold. Midas must have been having a retrospective trip off the wagon this last week.
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Joined: Aug 2002
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Aug 2002
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I love to watch the leaves on a blustery day, like the trees are throwing handfulls of gold and red confetti.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2002
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hickories, locusts, sycamores
Locusts???
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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
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A frequently seen native locust in the South is the honey locust. Compound leaves and distinctive flowers: heavy, almost drupelike white flower clusters in late spring. I saw extraordinarily beatiful honey locusts this weekend outside of the Hyatt Regency in Reston, Virginia--very mature specimens with the distinctive bark of the mature locust: elephant-skin-textured with occasional cracks in it like the cracks you sometimes see in dried field clay.
There is also a native locust called the black locust, but I'm not on speaking terms with that one.
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Joined: Mar 2002
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2002
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I thought of locusts as flying about in large, unwelcome, hungry hordes. Sort of tartars of the insect world! But you say there are locust trees as well. Live and learn! Thank you for that.
Why are they called locust trees?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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I don't know--and I just spent quite a while on the Internet trying to find a reference that revealed the answer. I will suppose that it could be tied into the fact that the honey locust pods are edible and that bees enjoy the flowers, although the poisonous black locust has blossoms that are preferred by the bee, according to one site.
Maybe tsuwm or jheem will look in here and give us some insight about the etymology of the word 'locust'--tsuwm? jheem?
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Joined: Apr 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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well, this gets a bit complex, but basically the insect came first, and then the carob-tree became known as the locust-tree due to the resemblance of the carob pod to the bug; and finally the New-World trees so called may possibly have received their name from the resemblance of their fruit either to the carob-pod or the insect itself.
in the first case, this OED note is of some interest:
[The Gr. name properly denoting the insect, is applied in the Levant to the carob-pod, from some resemblance in form; and from very early times it has been believed by many that the ‘locusts’ eaten by John the Baptist were these pods. The application to the cassia-pod is due to confusion with the carob-pod.]
also, not too long ago (cf. Civil War draft riots) the clubs carried by NYC cops were called locust-clubs, from the wood used.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Oct 2000
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native locust (some varieties) have thorns-- even in the bark of the tree trunk! they were often planted as hedges/cattle fencing (before barbed wire)
there are hybid/thornless varieties, but one can occationally come across a native tree--its always a memorable experience.. (there is one in riverside drive park, about 110th street in manhattan, another can be found near the tressle crossing the LIRR in Little Neck-(both locations in NYC)
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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it has been believed by many that the ‘locusts’ eaten by John the Baptist were these pods.
Of course many, if not most, insects are treyf, but some are not. It may well be that the locust was one of the latter. Doesn't stop the carob being known as St. John's bread.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Most excellent information from tsuwm, of troy, and Faladagio! I like the theory that John the Baptist may have been eating pods from trees. There's a pulse in that theory, and I've just made a silly pun. Also, of troy, it is very interesting to think of the thorny locust as being a prototype of sorts for barbed wire, apocryphal or not. And, Fald': what's this 'treyf' business? Am I out of the loop again?
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