Here is a view of the inside of an Osage Orange bowl after just a small amount of the inside of the bowl has been removed. The hole in the center was previously tapped with a reverse twist tap so that the exterior of the bowl could be turned.
In Gregory Moors’ shop, Chapel Hill, NC.
Osage orange is the densest North American wood, and one of the hardest (eg Knoop Hardness). it is alos remarkably resistant to termites and other decay, and fence posts made of it are rated for 100 years of soil contact.
The Osage-orange (Maclura pomifera) is a plant in the mulberry family Moraceae. It is also known as Osage-apple, mock orange, hedge-apple, horse-apple, hedge ball, bois d’arc, bodark (mainly in Oklahoma and Texas), and bow wood. Common slang terms for it include monkey brain, monkey ball, dick fruit, monkey orange, and brain fruit due to its brainlike appearance.
Before the invention of barbed wire, osage orange was planted as hedge rows, living fences and wind-breaks over much of the Great Plains of the united States. A workable fence took only four or five years to grow and was described as "horse high, bull strong, and hog tight." The hedge needed to be tall enough to stop a horse from jumping over it, stout enough to keep a bull from pushing through it, and the branching tight enough to prevent a hog from wending its way through it. Most hedgerows stood about 40 feet tall and 30 to 40 feet across; quite a barrier indeed.
