The Author considers the strong polemical emphasis placed in C.E Gadda's novel "La Cognizione del dolore" (and elsewhere in his works) on a very common sort of shrub or tree: the Robinia pseudoacacia (= black locust); and analyses eight different interacting 'reasons' (according to the point of view of the narrator) for its odd textual status - from the uneven shape to the tendency to proliferate, and the lack of cultural tradition. The conclusion focuses the neutralizing effect of lyric 'pathetic' contexts on Gadda's resentment against the robinia.