title: Locust tree
text: # Locust tree
  
  Locust tree can mean:
  
         Honey locust (Gleditsia triacanthos), a leguminous tree with pods having a sweet, edible pulp
         Black locust (Robinia pseudoacacia), a leguminous tree with toxic pods
         Water locust (Gleditsia aquatica), a leguminous tree with one seed per pod
  * Or less commonly, "African locust bean tree" (Parkia biglobosa), which is also known as néré
  * Also not commonly, the carob tree, Ceratonia siliqua, whose pods are called locust beans.
  
  ## Etymology
  
  "Locust" comes from the Latin locusta, meaning both "locust" (the insect) and "lobster". By analogy with a levantine use of the Greek word for the insect, akris, for the pods of the carob tree which supposedly resembled it, the pod-bearing North American tree was called "locust" starting in the 1630s.
  
  