Black Locust

Black locust, also called false acacia, is a fast-growing deciduous hardwood of the legume family. It is native only to two small parts of the eastern United States, around the Appalachians and the Ozark and Ouachita uplands, but has been planted and naturalised across temperate North America, Europe, Asia and Africa, and in places is counted invasive. Its leaves are divided into many rounded leaflets, young growth carries short spines in pairs, and in May or June it hangs out drooping clusters of fragrant white pea-flowers, the source of the honey sold in Europe as acacia honey. English colonists found it at Jamestown in 1607 and built houses from its timber, and the genus is named for Jean Robin, a royal gardener in France, who is said to have planted one in Paris around 1600. Its very hard, rot-resistant wood was long valued for ships' trenails, fence posts and firewood. Kynes writes that locust trees were thought somewhat sinister for their thorns and for the dense witches'-broom growths taken as signs of bewitchment, and that New England legend has some of those condemned at Salem hanged on a locust. In magic it is used for protection, binding, love, fidelity and strength.