PRICKLY ASH. | ; 4157 
Linneeus placed the Xanthoxyla in his natural 
order Dumose, but Smith thinks them better 
arranged with the Hederacew. Jussieu places 
them with his Terebintaceis affinia. 
The branches of the Prickly ash are covered 
with strong, sharp prickles, arranged without 
order, though most frequently in pairs at the 
insertion of the young branches. Leaves pinnate, 
the common petiole sometimes unarmed and 
sometimes prickly on the back. Leafets about 
five with an odd one, nearly sessile, ovate, acute, 
with slight vesicular serratures, somewhat downy 
underneath. The flowers appear in April and 
May before the leaves are expanded. They grow 
in sessile umbels about the origin of the young 
branches, are small and greenish. I have 
observed them of three kinds, making the shrub 
strictly polygamous. In the staminiferous flower 
the calyx is five leaved, the leaves oblong, obtuse, 
erect. Stamens five with subulate filaments and 
sagittate four celled anthers. In the place of 
pistils are three or four roundish corpuscles 
supported on pedicels from a common base. 
The perfect flowers, growing on the same plant, 
have the calyx and stamens like the last; the 
germs are three or four, pedicelled, and having 
erect, converging styles nearly as long as the 
