It’s a Hedge Apple, AKA Osage Orange; Bowwood, tree. It’s an ugly tree, and the spikes on the limbs can be dangerous, but the squirrels and birds seem to have adapted well.

Under that tree I have a hammock, which as often as I can, I spend a little while relaxing. I can see the sky through the buds of leaves coming out just now, after all the other trees’ leaves are maturing and bright green, this one lags behind a week, maybe two, of everything else, as if to say it has decided to wait and see if Spring is really here, before it is willing to put forth any effort for another year. It is a male, and there no longer is any fruit, as the female in the yard over was cut down just 2 maybe three years ago. I suppose the tree could be lonely now, having lost its mate.

I have kept it company from time to time, as we commisserate and dream a bit, Under the Hedge Apple Tree. - Nashville Tennessee.