MO Trees: Brain Fruit Multi-Cache

Required tools for completion: a calculator, a tape measure in feet and inches, and possibly a helmet in autumn. Daylight hours only, please.

Tree name: Osage-orange (Maclura pomifera)
Nicknames: Horse Apple, Hedge Apple, Moch Orange

Identification

Osage-orange trees are rather odd creatures. The first thing you'll notice about the often bent or crooked trunk is an orange tinge where the inner bark is exposed. Outer bark is brown to grey in color with narrow, forked ridges. Looking up, you'll see the tree can stretch upward 30 to 40 feet with a crazy amount of branches leading to an irregular crown. Covering the limbs are oval, smooth sided leaves that taper to a point. Watch out for small thorns where the leaves meet the branches!

WARNING! Do NOT stand underneath an Osage-orange during autumn without wearing some sort of protective head gear. In an odd way, the fruit gives this warning by resembling the very organ it can damage! Imagine a human brain with all of its complex, swirling ridges. Now compact that to a heavy, dense ball three to five inches wide and paint it green. Add in a propensity for leaking a milky sap, and you have the forbearer of future Osage-orange trees. These brain-like fruit can be dangerous when gravity compels them to the ground.

Osage-orange Age

Grab your tape measure, a calculator, a pair of tweezers and a helmet (optional). You're going to find the geocache by determining the age of this fine specimen of an Osage-orange tree and projecting a waypoint. All that's needed is the tree's circumference. How will you determine that? Read on!

About four and a half feet (4 feet, 6 inches) from the ground, wrap your tape measure around the trunk of the tree. Make sure your tape measure's height is close to the same all the way around. Where the end of the tape measure meets the tape measure again is the circumference. Write down this measurement in feet and inches.

(An alternate method is to tie a rope around the tree at the specified height. Mark where the rope meets itself and measure that length with your tape measure.)

Next, you're going to round the measurement you wrote down to the nearest even numbered foot. Let's say, as an example, the number you wrote down is 5 feet, 1 inch. This rounds up to 6 feet since the 6 foot mark is closer to that measurement than the 4 foot mark. The number you end up with will be "X" for the upcoming calculation.

It's time for some math. Don't worry - Unitzoid has boiled things down to a single formula. Multiply "X" by 13.369, then subtract 5.25. Keep everything to the left of the decimal point. This is the approximate age of the tree in years! Pretty nifty, eh?

The Projection

But what about the geocache? Here's where you will project a waypoint with a distance and bearing from true north. The calculator you brought along (or have on your smartphone) will certainly come in handy. The distance and bearing you derive start at the Osage-orange tree (i.e. the posted coordinates).

Begin with the degrees from true north. Take each digit of the age and add them together. For example, let's say the Osage-orange tree is 602 years old. 6 plus 0 plus 2 equals 8. Got it? Next, take that number, multiply by ten and subtract nine. Returning to the example, 8 times 10 is 80, then subtracting 9 gives us 71. Bingo! You now have the degrees from true north.

You know which direction to go, but how far will you go? Subtract five from the degrees you just calculated. Going back to our example, 71 minus 5 is 66. That's the distance in feet!

Since the geocache has disappeared a trio of times, the latest incarnation is tricky but not impossible. Don't give up! Refer to the hint if you'd like a small push. Good luck, be stealthy, and cache on!

Permission was obtained to place this geocache.