Hedge Apples

My last night and morning have been fraught with the kinds of misfortunes that won't make anyone feel sorry for me except myself. Bottles of hair dye and expensive conditioner spilling while I'm trying to mix them, dogs digging giant holes in the yard and tracking the dirt all over the house, a robot vacuum cleaner that's better at sucking up discarded articles of clothing than the aforementioned dirt, the same vacuum cleaner deciding to die 6 inches away from its charging port in the middle of the night without ever getting around to cleaning the house, violent movies blasting in my ear when I'm trying to de-stress before bed, and dogs vomiting on the couch (the first time in months that this had happened, and the only time in several weeks that the couch cover wasn't on it...naturally)—that about sums it up.

Oh yeah, and we have cockroaches again. This is nothing new in the past 24 hours; I've been spotting them creepy-crawling around the house with disturbing regularity since late spring, but they make just one more nasty thing floating around in this cesspit of unfortunate circumstances. Do you feel sorry for me? I feel sorry for myself, that's for sure.

I was busy feeling sorry for myself as I biked slowly and grumpily to work this morning (shoutout to the dude at the bus stop who probably just said good morning—I'm sorry if I glared at you, I couldn't really hear you and was caught by surprise), when what to my wondering eyes should appear? A hedge apple, reposing beautifully by the side of the bike trail!

This photo is a reenactment, using
another fruit I found in the afternoon.

A hedge apple? you say. I don't blame you. I said it to myself as I rolled even more slowly down the path, debating whether I should turn around for a closer look. But if you, unlike me, were not merely trying to decide whether to make yourself late for work with a botanical side trip, and were instead wondering what a hedge apple is, well, in short, it is a fruit that is said to have cockroach-repelling properties.

I was first introduced to hedge apples the last time we had a cockroach infestation, when my stepmom was nice enough to have a box of them shipped to my house. Upon receiving this unexpected bounty, I learned that if you place a few hedge apples strategically around your house, you might (emphasis on might) be able to keep the cockroaches away. Apparently the evidence for their efficacy was mostly anecdotal, but hey, it couldn't hurt to set a few out, and if they did work, they would certainly be more humane than poison.

So I distributed my five (?) hedge apples around the house and kept them there until all of them had rotted (some of which took months). By the time I got rid of the last one, my roach problem was  completely eliminated. I have to admit that that may have been thanks to the Advion cockroach gel that my boyfriend had bought, but I can't say conclusively that the hedge apples hadn't helped! So come this spring, when cockroaches began to again rear their ugly heads, I began to think about hedge apples, and wonder if I might ever run across some at a farmers' market or something, and should that occur, if maybe I should buy some for further cockroach prevention.

Well, fast forward to today, and a hedge apple had all but jumped into my path! What a way to reverse the streak of bad luck I've been having! After minimal deliberation, I did choose to turn the bike around and retrieve the fruit, even at the cost of my punctuality. In fact, as long as I had stopped, I decided I might as well see if I could find any more hedge apples, so I hiked up my skirts, waded into the brush, and managed to scavenge 3 more fallen fruits.

When I got to the office, I decided to check that what I had acquired were indeed hedge apples, and the Internet confirmed my hypothesis.

While I was there, I learned some Hedge Apple Fun Facts:

• Hedge apples are also (perhaps more commonly) known as osage oranges.
• They are scientifically known as Maclura pomifera.
• They are in the same family as mulberries.
• The tree they grow on has spines (good luck picking your hedge apples straight off the tree!).
• The sticky sap of the hedge apple tree and its fruit can irritate your skin.
• Some people use them to treat cancer, but that might not be such a great idea.

The most useful fact I learned is that, while certain compounds in the hedge apple have been scientifically shown to repel insects, the concentrations of them found naturally in the fruit are not high enough to really make a difference in practical usage. One article specifically warned, "don't be fooled into spending much to use hedge apples as an insect repellent."

Well, that is both disappointing and reassuring at the same time. It didn't say not to use hedge apples at all, it just said not to spend too much on them. As long as I can get my hedge apples for free by the side of the road, I don't see any harm in continuing to use them in my war against the roaches. At the very least, they make an interesting decoration!

Still Life with Hedge Apples. © 2018