Archimedes Plutonium wrote:

I suspect honeylocust comes in male and female individuals. But can a male tree ever turn into a female tree or vice versa?

The observation I recently found was that I had cut an old honeylocust
flush to the ground. It was a big tree. And of course suckers followed
year after year. Some I undug and transplanted elsewhere. But the tree
was thornless when I cut it down. It was about 2 to 3 feet diameter. The
surprizing thing to me is that some suckers came up that were thornless
but others were thorny.

Perhaps thorns are not male and female category.

Anyone know what is going on?


Honeylocust, as a member of the genus _Gleditsia_, is usually
polygamo-dioecious, which means that trees bear both unisexual and
bisexual flowers. So, while trees bear flowers that are mostly of one
sex, most will also have bisexual (perfect) flowers. I don't think it
is common to have fully male or fully female trees, so if you notice a
difference in fruit production from year to year, likely the tree is
just adjusting its proportion of unisexual and bisexual flowers.

Plants propagated from trunk or root sprouts will be exactly
genetically identical to the parent.

As for thorniness, it's quite variable from plant to plant. Often you
get more thorns on young individuals. AFAIK, thorniness is not
related to sex expression.

M. Reed.