THE PRICKLY ASH AND THE HOP TREE 



PRICKLY ASH; HERCULES' CLUB; TOOTHACHE TREE (Fag- 

 ara Clava-Herculis, Small). Shrub to 30 feet. Round-headed 

 tree, with bird-claw, stout spines inch or more in length arm- 

 ing twigs, leaf-stalks and older limbs. Bark gray, roughened 

 by warty tubercles on which spines are mounted. Sap bitter, 

 burning. Bark collected locally for use in treatment of rheu- 

 matism and toothache. Called "sting tongue," produces 

 copius flow of saliva when chewed. Leaves compound, 5 to 

 8 inches long, of 3 to 9 pairs of opposite leaflets, and a terminal, 

 odd one, oval, pointed, serrate, lustrous, green above, paler, 

 pubescent beneath, almost evergreen. Flowers small, green- 

 ish, clustered on ends of branches, mixed. Fruit in dense 

 clusters of 1-seeded, dry, brown carpels, from which the seeds 

 hang when ripe, in late summer. Dist. : Virginia to Florida, 

 and following the Gulf coast to Texas, north to Arkansas. 

 Abundant in eastern Texas. Almost exterminated elsewhere, 

 by the collecting of bark by negroes 



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