XXXV. THE PRICKLY ASH. 509 



remedies to fever ; others are used in dyeing yellow ; and the 

 wood of such as grow large enough is valuable for hardness 

 and beauty. It contains trees or shrubs, having usually prickles 

 on the branches and on the leaf-stems and the mid-rib of the 

 leaflets. The leaves have from 3 to 13 leaflets. The flowers 

 are small, and greenish or whitish ; the petals longer than the 

 sepals or wanting ; stamens in the sterile flowers long, in the 

 fertile, scale-like ; ovaries 1 to 5, distinct ; seed-vessels crusta- 

 ceous when mature, with or without a stalk, 2-valved, 1- or 2- 

 seeded. 



The Prickly Ash. X. Americanum. Miller. 

 Figured in Bigelow's Medical Botany, Vol. Ill, Plate 59. 



When growing by itself, this is a low, much-branched, round- 

 headed shrub or small tree, with an erect stem covered with a 

 rather smooth, light gray, or, on the old stems, dark gray bark. 

 The recent shoots are brown, with a pulverulent surface. The 

 buds are low, broad and round, of a crimson brown, with 2 

 short, sharp-pointed, stipular prickles or thorns just beneath. The 

 leaves are made up of from 3 to 13 nearly sessile, ovate-oblong, 

 acute, almost entire leaflets, somewhat downy beneath, and 

 oftentimes armed with prickles, which are mostly near the 

 base of the leaflets. The flowers expand in April or May, be- 

 fore the leaves, in short umbels, from the axils of the leaves. 

 Each fertile flower has from 3 to 5 ovaries on short stalks, 

 which, when mature, become so many 2-valved capsules, each 

 containing a shining, blackish seed. The valves are covered 

 with a pitted, brown or reddish rind, fragrant, when rubbed, 

 with an agreeable, lemon-like, aromatic odor. The bark is bit- 

 ter and pungent, and has been much used, in tincture, or in 

 powder, in rheumatic affections. The wood is of a yellow 

 color, whence Mr. Colden gave it the name Xanthoxylum, 

 which signifies yelloiv wood. 



I have found it growing in only one place, on a southern slope 

 in Medford. It is there very abundant, growing single, or in 

 little clumps or thickets, to the height of four or five feet. 

 When cultivated, it is sometimes twenty feet high. 



