Locusts are large insects that live mainly in hot countries. They fly in large groups and eat crops. an insect that lives mainly in Asia and Africa and flies in a very large group, eating and destroying crops (locusta ). In botany, any of about 20 tree species in the genus Robinia of the pea family (see legume), all native to eastern North America and Mexico. Best-known is the black locust (R. pseudoacacia), often called false acacia or yellow locust. Widely cultivated in Europe as an ornamental, it grows 80 ft (24 m) high and bears long, compound leaves. The fragrant white flowers hang in loose clusters. There are many varieties, some thornless. The black locust has long been used for erosion control and as a timber tree. The so-called honey locust (Gleditsia triacanthos), also of the pea family, is a North American tree commonly used as an ornamental and often found in hedges. Any of several species of grasshoppers (family Acrididae) that undergo population explosions and migrate long distances in destructive swarms. In North America the names locust and grasshopper are interchangable and used for any acridid; cicadas are sometimes called locusts. In Europe, locust refers to large species and grasshopper to small ones. Locusts are found worldwide. Sporadic locust swarms may be explained by the theory that swarming species have a solitary phase (the normal state) and a gregarious phase. Nymphs that mature in the presence of many other locusts develop into the gregarious type; thus migratory swarms form as a result of overcrowding. Swarms may be almost unimaginably large, towering 5,000 ft (1,500 m) high; in 1889 a Red Sea swarm was estimated to cover 2,000 sq mi (5,000 sq km). Locust plagues can be extremely destructive of crops
A tree Robinia pseudoacacia in the subfamily Faboideae of the pea family Fabaceae, native to the southeastern United States, but widely planted and naturalized elsewhere in temperate North America, Europe and Asia; considered an invasive species in some areas
large thorny tree of eastern and central United States having pinnately compound leaves and drooping racemes of white flowers; widely naturalized in many varieties in temperate regions strong stiff wood of a black-locust tree; very resistant to decay
A deciduous tree (Robinia pseudoacacia) in the pea family, native to the eastern and central United States and having alternate, pinnately compound leaves, spiny stipules, and hanging clusters of fragrant, creamy-white flowers
Any of several trees of the genus Gleditsia, especially G. triacanthos, having deciduous, pinnately compound leaves, small flowers in racemes, and large, often twisted, indehiscent pods
tall usually spiny North American tree having small greenish-white flowers in drooping racemes followed by long twisting seed pods; yields very hard durable reddish-brown wood; introduced to temperate Old World