Honey locust seed pods

Hello, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. Honey locust seed pods have a sweet nutritious substance surrounding the seeds, but not many animals these days can eat through the tough pods, which may have evolved to be consumed and distributed by mastodons, one of our extinct megafauna. However, archaeologists who research sites of Cherokee villages have found an unusual concentration of honey locust trees there. The pods of honey locust, as the common name suggests, contain a sugary pulp surrounding the seeds. Members of the Cherokee nation would extract this material and use it as a sweetener. They also made bows from the dense and shock resistant wood. Interestingly, the tree most prized for bows, Maclura pomifera, was also planted by indigenous Americans across their range, and this tree’s fruit, unpalatable to animals today, was eaten by extinct megafauna.