The wicked thorns of the honey locust tree

Hello, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. Honey locust is a fascinating tree that has what are described as "wicked thorns," up to four inches long and occurring in groups of three on trunks and branches. There’re several ideas about why it has thorns. One theory is that mastodons, that had large grinding teeth and ate bark and limbs, browsed on this bark and the tree adapted by growing thorns. Seems a little far fetched but some scientists hold this theory, and mastodons were in North America for almost four million years. The thorns usually don’t occur higher on the tree than where a mastodon could reach leading to another theory -- the thorns were to keep them from eating the seed pods before they were ripe and fell to the ground. Researchers have found these seeds in mastodon dung.