Black Locust with Pink Flowers in album trees

In Albums: flowers trees plants

May 12th, 2011, by Alex Zorach

This photo shows pink flowers on a black locust tree. The tree came up, possibly from seed, but more likely from a root sprout, in my back yard while I was living in Newark, Delaware. With a bit of care, I tended this tree and it rapidly grew taller than me in less than a year. The identical color of the blossoms to the nearby taller tree, and the rapid growth, suggest to me that this was a sprout from the root of the other tree, rather than a new tree that came up from seed.

Black locusts naturally have white flowers, and will typically revert back to their natural color if allowed to come up from seed. Some ornamental cultivars have been selected for other colors of blossoms. I have never seen a plant for sale with this exact shade of pink, so it is possible that this plant is a reversion back closer to the natural color, from another cultivar, or it is possible that it is just a cultivar that i have not yet seen.