I found this growing on a tree near my office, it is sticky, and it smells kind of fruity, and it is about the size of a melon.

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This looks like a black walnut pod. You can open up the pod and take out the walnut shell with the meat inside it. I would recommend not touching the inside of this green pod with your bare hands as your hand will get stained with the walnut stain. I happily had 2 huge bags of walnuts given to me one autumn and "shelled" the outside pod off the walnuts. Even through two sets of latex gloves my hands were stained "walnut brown". My hands were stained for about a week. I fed the walnuts to the squirrels who buried most of them in my lawn for later snacking.

Thanks for your reply, but this is definitely not a black walnut pod, the house I grew up in had a black walnut tree growing in the back yard, and I am very familiar with the pods from the black walnut tree.
Like I said above this thing is about the size of a cantaloupe, and is very dense. Have you ever seen any thing like this?

Hi, thommyschnak!

I can see where it could be mistaken for something from a walnut tree.

It's a hedgeapple. We have a lot of those trees that grow in the region where I'm located.

Hedgeapple - Google Image Search (http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=Hedgeapple&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi)

Thanks!

Thank you for your reply, I think you got it. Do these things usually grow on the bark of a tree?

I don't think so, but I'm not absolutely positive about that. There's a wealth of information that can be found on the following sites.

Hedgeapple.com - Buy Hedgeapples Here. Learn everything about the Osage Orange tree and the Hedgeapple (http://hedgeapple.com/)

Osage Orange (http://www.gpnc.org/osage.htm)

That is definitely an Osage Orange

Yes it's a hedgeappple and it is not poisonous and usually they don't grow that big, I'd keep it. And they look great over fireplaces.

An alien brain! Wow that's weird!

I found this growing on a tree near my office, it is sticky, and it smells kind of fruity, and it is about the size of a melon.

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It looks to me like an Osage Orange from an Osage Tree or Bowwood tree or to be correct a Maclura pomifera. A wonderful large growing tree that I have seen about 60-80 feet tall and almost as wide. I am not at all sure about propagation. I have played with the fruit, saying I was going to propagate. But, ah time is not allowed to do what I would love to do. :)