First Locust

[Ox]

 :D This reminds me of that older movie, Short Circuit with the robot always saying, "Need INPUT!".  I love input.  Thanks for this information, I really appreciate it.  If I didn't know any better I'd look at the map of black locust and say it didn't grow in upstate NY.  Oh, but it does!  How the heck I got honey locust here I'll never know but I have just a few saplings growing as we speak.  I don't remember any growing anywhere else around up here in all my life.
Plowboyswr - I can appreciate your dislike for honey locust after seeing the pics of the nasty thorns on them.  For sure, they look like tire killers.  We have that problem here with thorn bushes/crab apple/thorn trees.  I'm not sure the proper name for them.  But they have needles that get to maybe 2" or so and are thick and very strong.  Always are there and in the dead of winter the smaller ones will be buried in snow and you'll get them with your tractor when fetching firewood or skidding logs.  Once in a while you'll accidentally brush up against a taller one and you come out of the woods looking like you pithed off a large cat.

[fishfighter]

Ox, best bet is to kill all HL. It spreads like wild fire. >:(

[WV Sawmiller]

Fishy,

   I'm not sure need to kill them all but they can be a problem and I've heard they can spread quickly if you are not careful. I think HL is sometimes planted as an ornamental. First I ever saw was near Auburn Ala. Our wildlife professor showed us (Wildlife Biology students)one on a hunting lease he was a member of which I think was an old abandoned homestead. He advised us deer loved the beans so it does have some wildlife value. There are several here in WV at a big flea market I frequent.

    I do like BL much better. Only issue I have with BL is it grows on any bare spot including hillsides (normally a good thing) but is shallow rooted and every few years we will have several days of soaking winter rain followed by a hard ice storm. In addition to the power lines falling the BL is the first to go and often has a domino effect taking down whole hillsides. Other than that is great. Wonderful fence post and poles for barns and preferred firewood around here.

[fishfighter]

Yep, deer do love the bean pods. That and coons. That is what spreads the seeds. Every chance, I will throw them. Like I said, they will spread like wild fire in just a year around here.

[brianJ]

Honey locust thorns are modified branches.  They occur anywhere on the stem, main bole, branches, etc.  They are also multi-branched, and look evil.  They grow right out of the main bole of the tree, and anywhere up the stem.

To me this implies that any locust I find without or with minimal thorns is black locust.  Is that a correct assumption?

[WDH]

No.  There are ornamental varieties of thornless honeylocust where the thorns have been bred out. 

The key is the placement of the thorns and the leaves.  Stipular thorns are always in pairs at the base of the leaf petiole (stalk that attaches the leaf to the twig).  Like a rose bush or a blackberry bush.  This is black locust.

Honeylocust thorns are never just in pairs at the leaf petiole; they occur anywhere.

Black locust thorns are always single thorns.  Honeylocust can branch wickedly.  Check out how these honeylocust thorns that appear randomly on the tree and see how they are branched.  http://mosurvival.blogspot.com/2012/06/honey-locust-thorn-tree.html

He is picture of the simple, paired thorns of black locust.  http://www.portraitoftheearth.com/trees/blacklocust.html

In developments, cities, and in areas where people live and plant trees, a thornless locust could be either species and horticultural varieties of both black locust and honeylocust have been developed.