ARALIACE/E— GINSENG FAMILY 



HERCULES' CLUB. ANGELICA-TREE 



Aralia spiiiosa. 



An aromatic spiny tree with stout wide spreading branches, 

 twenty to thirty feet in height, trunk six to eight inches in diameter; 

 oftener a cluster of branchless thorny stems ten to twenty feet high. 

 Roots thick and fleshy. Prefers a deep moist soil ; ranges from 

 Pennsylvania westward to Missouri and southward to Texas. Bark 

 of the root and the berries are used in medicine, principally in do- 

 mestic practice. 



^<^^r/^.— Light brown, divided into rounded broken ridges. Branch- 

 lets one-half to two-thirds of an inch in diameter, armed with stout, 

 straight or curved, scattered prickles and nearly encircled by narrow 

 leaf scars. At first light yellow brown, shining and dotted, later 

 light brown. 



Wood. — Brown with yellow streaks ; light, soft, brittle, close- 

 grained. 



Winter Buds. — Terminal bud chestnut brown, one-half to three- 

 fourths of an inch long, conical, blunt ; axillary buds flattened, tri- 

 angular, one-fourth of an inch in length. 



Leaves. — Clustered at the end of the branches, compound, bi- and 

 tri-pinnate, three to four feet long, two and a half feet broad. The 

 pinnae are unequally pinnate, having five or six pairs of leaflets 

 and a long stalked terminal leaflet ; these leaflets are often them- 

 selves pinnate. The last leaflets are ovate, two to three inches 

 long, wedge-shaped or rounded at base, serrate or dentate, acute ; 

 midrib and primary veins prominent. They come out of the bud a 

 bronze green, shining, somewhat hairy ; when full grown are dark 

 green above, pale beneath ; midribs frequently furnished with 

 prickles. In autumn they turn a beautiful bronze red touched with 

 yellow. Petioles stout, light brown, eighteen to twenty inches in 

 length, clasping, armed with prickles. Stipules acute, one-half inch 

 long. 



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