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Please Don't Quote Me

By Caralee Aschenbrenner

One word is often used in naming streets in the Midwest, Locust. Why was it so popular? Search doesn’t find anything specific but we could guess that it was the tree found prevalently across the prairie and plains that was used to pay tribute to for its quickly growing characteristics and the shade that it cast on the treeless landscapes.

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L to R—Kentucky Coffee Tree, Mimosa Silktree, Honey Locust Leaf sketches from “Master Tree Finder,” May Watts

The Locust is of the leguminous family of trees, meaning that it produces a pod with bean-like seeds. They are Nature’s third largest seed producing plants overall. There are 12,000 such species of herbs, shrubs and trees in the world. In North America there are forty-four native and six naturalized such trees.

In the Southwest there is the Catclaw or Devil’s Claw Locust ominous sounding names that have spines that tear and scratch to inspire the names. However, some of those produce a honey-like sap that was a treat to wildlife or human. They furnished wood for fuel or for tool handles. Also there is the Silktree brought from Iran or China and sometimes called a Mimosa or Powderpuff tree for its lacy flowers. The Kentucky Coffee tree has been a popular tree, its beans roasted produce a coffee substitute but is extremely poisonous when raw. The pretty lacy foliage graces such an example here in Lanark on West Franklin Street (off of Locust!). When cooked properly, the fruit pulp was used for home remedies.

The legume trees all have interesting and a variety of individuality all their own. The Clammy Locust was discovered in South Carolina by the famous botanist, William Bartram in 1776. It is recognizable by the “clammy,” sticky hairs that grow from the branches. Its many pink flowers in the spring identify it, too.

The Honey Locust is a favorite of wildlife and livestock because of the honey-like secretions it exudes with the pods. This legume tree has clusters of spines, arranged “explosions” of needle-like spines. They were used for straight pins they were so durable.

All trees have buds but with the Sycamore and Black Locust you can’t see them, the first with its foliage grown out, has its leaves covering the bud like a candle snuffer. (You kids know what is a candle snuffer?) The bud of the Black Locust is also invisible, hidden in the bark of the twig.

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The Locusts are so versatile Sprouts from the “beans” grow rapidly around the base of the tree and though the tree is relatively short-lived it is excellent for controlling erosion such as in lands strip mined in coal fields, shelter belts, and is used as an ornamental for hedging and to attract birds and wildlife.

The Black Locust was first mentioned in 1607 by the Jamestown, Virginia colonists. The Native Americans there used the wood for making bows. They are thought to have planted them for such purposes. The colonials who first settled in America used Black Locusts to make the corner posts of the log houses they built. Locust has always been traditional for making fence posts, too.

Besides the Locust TREE there is the Locust INSECT. You may think that’s what is being heard now at the height of summer, “singing” in the trees, any tree. But, no, it is not. It’s a cicada.

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Cicada, not a Locust (Farmers Almanac)

All references stipulate that most people believe that it is the Locust that we hear but that is incorrect. It was surprising to me to learn that the Locust is almost the same as a grasshopper. Pictures of them are nearly alike. Back in the 1870’s those Easterners and Midwesterners pushing to the West would write home to the weekly newspapers or friends who shared them to tell about the terrible swarms of locusts that darkened the skies and fell to Earth to completely strip plants of their leaves by chewing them bare. Some said grasshoppers. There was little distinction between the two. Why the cicada was mistakenly called a locust or “harvest locust,” we don’t know.

Perhaps because of their swarming characteristics they were likened to the Biblical tales of the ancient days but still they weren’t cicadas. Unlike the Acrididae, the locust and grasshopper’s official designation, the cicada is practically not at all harmful. Underground where the cicada develops, they might suck sap from a weak, young sapling till it dies but otherwise it isn’t the plague of its insect opposite.

They have few habits alike, features alike or eat the same things. One chews, the other sucks. Neither insect is handsome but the cicada is truly ugly. It might be said that only a mother could love the sight of a baby cicada and perhaps that’s right because the female cicada puts the 600 eggs she lays, one at a time, on a twig or branch so she might get to know them. Sometimes there weight is so great that the twig will fall to the ground but that makes it easier for the little hatched out nymphs to be closer to burrowing through the Earth to the deep “nest” where it grows from the tiny 1/16th inch nymph it started out as.

There are two kinds of cicadas—the common and the periodic. The latter is the 17 year or 13 year cicada we’ve heard about. Its life below the ground’s surface is the longest of any insect. As it grows it molts four times. Its first seven to eight years are in the nymph period and then it forms its cicada identity until some mysterious urge motivates it to begin climbing to the outside world. Just before it emerges into the air, it molts for the fifth and final time, turning from white to the dark skin we see. (Ever seen one of their shells?) The male emerges first followed by the female a few days later. No one has ever discovered what prompts the periodic cicada to keep to the cycle it has followed over centuries. But it’s scientific name is Magicada which tells us its arcane background.

A neighbor brought one over last year and, oh, my, it was a complicated design, quite like something from a horror movie. And those red eyes!

The male cicada is the one who “sings” now in these hot August days. The cicada is sometimes called “dog day” cicada. The monotone drone is created by a couple of membranes in the cicada’s thorax that vibrate when the insect lifts its abdomen. The female doesn’t sing. Greek writer Xenarchus quipped, “Happy are male cicadas lives. They all have silent wives.” (!) Hmmmm.

Cicadas exist only five to six weeks above ground in a season but oh, such a good time they have ... It’s all singing and sex, sex and singing. You see how different the lives of the cicada are from the nervous, ever on the move locust or grasshopper?

The Cicada leads a somewhat indolent life. Its only tough time is when it emerges from its deep burrow. If it comes up under a cement porch or concrete highway it still will burrow through it, no matter what. If it becomes too exhausted it will die. But it doesn’t know any better.

To end on a positive spin, cicadas do make a good snack food! The Native Americans ate them prodigiously but the pioneers didn’t go for them at all no matter how hungry. All you have to do is dip them in batter and deep fry them to a golden brown ... A bit of cocktail sauce enhances the taste. Flavor? They are said to taste like a cross between a potato and an avocado! Remember, it’s not a locust.

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