Marian Hoddenp ago 11, Columbia, S. C., for her questions

Where does ironwood grow?

Through out the world dozens of different, unrelated trees have been named ironwood. Most of them are smallish trees or large shrubs. All of them have hard, iron.‑like wood. In the Dutch East Indies a certain myrtle is called ironwood. The name is given to some acacias in Africa and to a certain olive tree in Australia.

There is no special tree to which we can point and say, this and only this is the ironwood tree. It seems that people call any smallish tree with tough wood the ironwood. Its wood may be white, pink, brown or almost black. Chances are its wood is hard because the tree grows slowly. Hence we usually find these ironwoods growing in arid and semi‑arid regions. The mesquite of our southwestern deserts is sometimes called ironwood.