HONEY LOCUST
Widely planted as a hardy and fast growing ornamental. It is often used in extreme urban stress areas such as parking lot islands and sidewalk tree squares and has been planted for erosion control.
Honey-locust wood is dense, hard, coarse-grained, strong, stiff, shock resistant, takes a high polish, and is durable in contact with soil. It has been used locally for pallets, crates, general construction, furniture, interior finish, turnery, firewood, railroad ties, and posts.
The Honey Locust is part of the Pea Family. Its fruit (pea pods) are flattened and strap-like podsdark brown at maturity, pendulous and usually twisted or spiraled.
Leaves are deciduous, alternate, pinnately or bipinnately compound.
GINKGO TREE
Non-native, but found in parks. Its leaves are unique among seed plants being fan-shaped with veins radiating out into the leaf blade.
It is referred to as a “living fossil”. The ginkgo biloba is one of the world’s oldest living tree species (over 350 million years old).
The Ginkgo tree is also know as the Maidenhair tree.
Ginkgo biloba is a popular supplement and one of the top-selling herbal medicines. Ginkgo biloba extract is collected from the dried green leaves of the plant.