I sent you an e-mail!

Mims, you gave me my warm fuzzy of the day.

Hmmmm...you've got me terribly curious! What are these seeds? (Or are you not allowed to say?)

I think we're all curious. Come on, MIMS, we won't out you to the flower police. Don't care how or where you came into possession of said seeds, just what they are.

What a nice gesture, though. Philmont will most likely appreciate the seeds, as well as the fact that you thought of him to inherit them, more than anyone else could.

Philmont, you are definitely one of our younger members, and have stuck around for so long. I think you've become like our team mascot.

Karen

Yes, inquiring minds want to know! Spill the beans! We love good stories!
E

Rather then repeat the story for you curious folks, I cut and paste the email I sent to Philmont for your reading pleasure. Enjoy!

Hello Philmont:

Thank you for responding to my Garden Web post. I am sorry I could not remember your screen name. When you get a chance, please send me your address so I can get some seeds to you that I'd really like you to have.

The seeds I have for you are from the fruit of an Osage Orange tree which, of course, is a rather unremarkable species in your neck of the woods probably akin to something like a mulberry tree from my corner of the forest. Nevertheless, I genuinely believe you will take great interest in these particular seeds, and I, in turn, will take great pleasure at your growing them should you so choose to undertake an attempt.

These seeds come from two fruits gathered this past September (9/11/08 to be precise), from a small grove of Osage Orange trees growing for nearly 200 years in a neat row along a fence at the back of a centuries old church graveyard on Pine Street in Philadelphia, PA. The church is St. Peter's Episcopal Church, and it's cemetery is a park like place I occasionally visit during my work week for solace, a bit of history and exploring, and for the benefits of weight loss these walks afford me. So far I have lost 61 lbs this year increasing the length and duration of my noon time walks to various parts of the City Of Brotherly Love. But I digress so back to the seeds now.

These trees are believed to grow from seeds or cuttings gathered by Meriwether Lewis and sent back from the famous Corps of Discovery expedition to a certain Bernard McMahon here in Philadelphia. A second connection to Lewis and Clark is rooted in the fact that the fruits I selected for gathering were found lying directly on top of and immediately adjacent to the grave of Nicholas Biddle, being the same Mr. Biddle who served as the very first editor of the Lewis and Clark journals that were kept by the explorers during the course of their epic journey.

If you ever have occasion to visit Philadelphia, you would do well to stop by the American Philosophical Society and the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia where many of the botanical specimens, memorabilia, artifacts, and the original journals of Lewis, Clark and Sergeant Ordway, are kept for posterity. And if you ever do visit do be sure to stop by the church graveyard on Pine Street from which these seeds came. Among the many interesting graves in the yard are Stephen Decatur's, he being of War of 1812 naval commander fame, as well as the graves of 6 tribal chiefs of several nations who came to Philadelphia in the 1790s to treaty with George Washington, our first President. Unfortunately, these poor souls took ill and died in short order due to being in the midst of a city full of European diseases for which their cultures had not yet developed immunity. They are in the yard buried someplace but their exact location remains a mystery to this day. But I digress yet again so back to the Lewis and Clark connections to these seeds.

A third connection is found in the fact that also within the walls of the St. Peter's Episcopal Church graveyard is the grave of Charles Wilson Peale for whom we are forever indebted for his remarkable portraits of so many of the important historical figures of our country's beginnnings, including of course, Lewis and Clark. In addition to his portrait works, Peale also made a living having established an extraordinary museum in Philadelphia containing many items of interest brought back from the Lewis and Clark expedition. If you ever come to Philadelphia do be sure to include a Wednesday in your visit so that you may enter, free of charge, the building known as the Second Bank of The United States, with its huge stately columns and Greek Revival architecture. Inside this building you will find hundreds of Charles Wilson Peale's famous portraits on display. The Lewis and Clark portraits here are the ones that you would instantly recognize from the cover and contents of numerous books on topic.

I suppose if you grow these trees and someone were ever to challenge your story of their origin, and how they came to you by way of me, you could probably spend some money tracing the DNA of your trees back to this church graveyard grove. Or you could just tell the disbelieving that's its so because you and I said it is so. Who will ever care if they believe or not, and you and I will always know better. Unfortunately, there isn't presently a way to firmly establish proof that the trees themselves, from which these seeds come, do indeed go back to the hands of Meriwether Lewis. For this piece of the story we will have to content ourselves with the work of historians who have researched and thought it so and published such trivia in the footnotes of several important books for me to find and explore on the streets of Philadelphia. Should it interest you further, there is a wealth of neat minutia of this kind in the booklet entitled "Contributions of Philadelphia to Lewis and Clark History" by Paul Russell Cutright, with site maps by Frank Muhly, and edited by The Philadelphia Chapter of The Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation. Can you tell that I spend way too much time with my Lewis and Clark obsessions?

Finally, these two fruits were gathered with the permission of one of the gentlemen that work in the offices of the church. I am guessing that between me and the squirrels also gathering the seeds within these fruits the groundskeeper's job is that much easier ... these are very messy trees when these giant fruits drop!
I do hope you enjoy the seeds and have great success "proceeding on" with their growth. Don't forget to email me your address.

Steve

MIMS, I am so glad you thought to get these seeds to Philmont - as one of the "older" folks on the forum, I am so blessed to see young people taking up the challenge to restore the beauty of our earth.

Wow!! What a neat bit of history. Thank you for sharing it with us

Thanks MIMS for the flashback-I grew up in Kansas and have been trying to find plants from my childhood to grow here in Michigan. One for those being the hedgeapples(osage orange)we played with. There are none up here and no-one has even heard of them. My dad brought some hedgeapples back with him last summer and I have my own little forest now:-)
They are in little pots and I hope they survive the winter up here! Also the seed need stratification(I didn't know how they worked, had to look it up!!LOL!!) I just left the fruit in a bucket with water covering the bottoms of the fruit, freeze,thaw,freeze,thaw then a bit of mush in a pot when in warmed up and wah-lah lil' trees!
-B

What a neat story, and so elegantly written, too. (MIMS, are your a writer by profession?) These seeds definitely should go to Philmont.

I had never heard of Osage Orange Trees. I had to google it. As soon as I saw the image of the fruit, I said "Oh, monkey balls!". I grew up in Pittsburgh, where these trees were very common when I was a kid. I remember a lot of them around Magee Field in Greenfield. We threw these stinky, messy fruits at one another all the time. Anyway, one google hit was to the linked Pittsburgh Post Gazette article. Surely anyone who lived in Pittsburgh 40 or 50 years ago is familiar with these trees.

I hope you enjoy the trees Philmont.

Karen

Here is a link that might be useful: Post Gazette

Well ... all I can say is ... leave it to me to find monkey balls worth gathering.

Tell you the truth ... I hope I never come across the monkey that lost them.

Karen, I grew up in the Pittsburgh area also, and we did a lot of monkey ball fights ...LOL Thanks for the memory !

I loved reading the history of the seeds, and I would think growing them would be that much more exciting with such a great story to tell !

Phimont, I wish you the best with growing them !

Sounds like a cool project. Neato thread.

My kids have a video game that deals with monkey balls. Makes me flinch.

Very interesting story. I'm from KS and the settlers planted the Osage Orange in rows to form a hedge that acted as a fence for the animals. More recently the cows ate them or got them stuck in their throats so the farmers didn't like them and most of the hedges have been replaced with fences. We called them road apples. I now live in MO and haven't seen any of them. I was at a composting class the other day and one of the speakers brought some of them so they are here but not used like KS. She handed them out to chase away the bugs, etc.

What great historical information...thank you so much for sharing it with us.

It's a privilege that's being bestowed on Philmont who sounds like someone who will respect these historical seeds and their origins. How cool is that! Good luck with them, Philmont.

MIMS you are a tremendous, engaging writer who also grows plants for all to appreciate.

Sure are a lot of multi-talented people on this forum.

I love this kind of history and seeing it passed down. So many people on these forums grow things their parents and grandparents grew. Positive intergenerational continuity is so important to preserve in horticulture and other areas. Seems to foster a "try it and see" attitude in younger generations.

My dad told me about "road apples", but they were left behind when the iceman came (the horsie was drawing the ice cart).....

Monkey balls! Too funny! I came home for lunch and I'm glad I did. I needed a good laugh. Thanks guys, you never fail me. "I hope I never come across the monkey that lost them." ROTFLMAO!!!

While visiting us in back in Michigan, my Iowa/Illinois in-laws were surprised to see osage orange, or what they called hedge, growing along a country road in Macomb county. The trees seemed healthy and vigorous, living up to their reputation as a naturally impenetrable fence.

My friends hubby is a farmer,he said that the "hedge apple" is what all farmers made their fence posts of,they last for ever, and will not rot,the wood becomes so hard once cut, you will never get it cut when dryed out,the very best for a good hot heat in the burner,these famous trees are going by the way side,with more and more development coming to the country,they are being ripped out and done away with.
I always wondered how to get a seed from this fruit,because it turns to mush if left out all winter, what does the seed look like, and how does one go about getting them?This has been a great read,truley enjoyable.
Carol

Hope this works!

Here is a link that might be useful: growing osage orange

I currently live in the outskirts of Pittsburgh but grew up in the city.

I never knew the name of the tree but I can remember these fruits lining the streets on my walk to school.

Thanks for the history and the memories. The osage orange still lined the streets 10 years ago.

The seeds look like like sunflower seed but smaller. Squirrels love them, and some people eat them. The fruit itself smells pleasant but is not edible.

Harvesting the seed requires patience because each is enveloped in a little gelatinous sack you have to remove. Break the ball in sections when it is hard and find the seeds surrounding the core, or wait until nature makes the ball flesh mushy and go after them then. There are about 200 seeds in a ball.

Here is a link that might be useful: Osage Orange Info