Lookalikes

False acacia or honey locust?

Both are pea-family trees with feathered leaves, and both can carry thorns.

The quickest check

The quickest check is the leaf stalk. False acacia: one stalk, 9 to 23 leaflets in pairs. Honey locust: often branched, each branch with its own pairs. No leaves on the tree? Check the flowers in june.

At a glance

Look at	False acacia	Honey locust
Leaf stalk	One stalk, 9 to 23 leaflets in pairs	Often branched, each branch with its own pairs
Flowers in June	White pea flowers about 2.5 cm, in hanging sprays	Tiny greenish white flowers in thin tails
Trunk	Greyish brown, deep cracks crossing into diamonds	Purplish grey, in wide raised ridges
Spines beside a bud	Two at each leaf base, one either side	Three beside each bud

Four ways to tell them apart

Leaf stalkLeaves

False acaciaOne stalk, 9 to 23 leaflets in pairs

Honey locustOften branched, each branch with its own pairs

Flowers in JuneFlowers

False acaciaWhite pea flowers about 2.5 cm, in hanging sprays

Honey locustTiny greenish white flowers in thin tails

TrunkBark

False acacia: trunk — False acaciaGreyish brown, deep cracks crossing into diamonds

Honey locust: trunk — Honey locustPurplish grey, in wide raised ridges

Spines beside a budTwigs and buds

False acacia: spines beside a bud — False acaciaTwo at each leaf base, one either side

Honey locust: spines beside a bud — Honey locustThree beside each bud

Think you can tell them apart now? Try the tree quiz: real photographs, and what gives each tree away.Take the quiz

The two trees

False acacia

Robinia pseudoacacia

False acacia is an open tree with twisting branches. Its long leaves carry many small oval leaflets, and its bark is deeply furrowed. Scented white pea flowers hang in clusters in June.

Honey locust

Gleditsia triacanthos

Honey locust is a slender, open tree with feathery leaves of many small leaflets, often bright yellow when young. Most planted in Britain are thornless. The ordinary thorny kind, rare in Britain, carries clumps of long spines on its trunk.

How to identify honey locust →

Their other lookalikes

False acacia or common ash?Quickest check: the edge of a leaflet

False acacia or rowan?Quickest check: the leaflet edge

False acacia or tree of heaven?Quickest check: the base of a leaflet

Honey locust or common ash?Quickest check: the leaflets

Honey locust or rowan?Quickest check: the leaflet edge

Honey locust or laburnum?Quickest check: the leaflets on one leaf

In the app

See them side by side in Treely

Both trees, part by partLeaves, bark, buds, flowers and fruit, photographed through the year
Every lookalike side by sideThe checks that settle it, for every pair people mix up
A short round each dayUntil you can tell them apart at a glance
The full GuideBoth trees written up in full, with where to find them

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Every fact on this page is checked against the Collins Tree Guide, last in November 2026. Spotted something that looks wrong in front of a real tree? Tell us. How we check.

Photographs: bmapp02 (CC0), cigazze (CC BY 4.0), loverseed (CC0), Leon Cross (CC BY 4.0), bobwardell (CC0), sblumen (CC BY 4.0). With thanks to everyone who shares their photographs on iNaturalist and Wikimedia Commons.