the REST of the pictures on this page will give you a better overall feel for this wood | ||
![]() | honey locust / Gleditsia triacanthos of the family Fabacea 3" x 3" flat cut, 3" x 3" quartersawn, 1" wide end grain, and a 1/4" x 1/4" end grain closeup. Ring porous with a line of large earlywood pores 2 to 4 pores thick and with occasional pores multiples dropping off to slightly smaller pores in the latewood with fat vasicentric parenchyma changing to confulent parenchyma part way through the latewood. Rays, of varying thickness, are very obvious. A very hard, durable wood. Another "locust" wood, black locust (Robnia pseudoacacia, also of the family Fabacea), has its own page on this web site. The two woods can sometimes be hard to distinguish via end grain characteristics but the face grains each have their own look and feel. Generally speaking black locust is yellowish/greenish and honey locust has a pink or orange tint, not yellow or green and the face grain in black locust tends to be straighter than the more often curved grain in honey locust. Honey locust can also be difficult to distinguish from coffee tree, but see this:
Another species in the genus Gleditsia, Gleditsia auqatica, is known as "water locust" and is reportedly difficult to impossible to distinguist from honey locust when in plank form (the TREES can be distinguished). You can see water locust on the "locust, misc" page. |
NOTE: these pics were all taken in very bright incandescent lighting ("soft white" at 2700K) colors will vary under other lighting conditions |