57° 



The Prickly Ashes 



Fig. 525. — Yellow Wood, Inagua, Bahamas. 



hairs when young, becoming thick, leathery and smooth, dull yellowish green, with 

 numerous large glands. The dicecious flowers, which appear in Florida during 

 June, in Bermuda in September, are in panicles of small cymes, the pedicels and 

 bracts whitish-hairj'; caly.x about i mm. broad, its sepals triangular-ovate; petals 

 5, oblong or oblong-ovate, 2.5 mm. long, greenish-white, recun-ed and thickened; 

 stamens longer than the petals; ovan,- glandular-punctate. The fruit is an ovoid 

 capsule 6 mm. long, also glandular-punctate, containing a single seed which is 

 about 4 mm. long, black and shining. 



The wood is verj' hard but weak and brittle, fine-grained, orange-yellow and 

 susceptible of a fine pohsh; its specific gravity is about 0.90; it is largely used for 

 furniture, and for tool handles. 



3. SOUTHERN PRICKLY ASH - Xanthoxylum Clava-Herculis Linnaeus 



Xanthoxylum caroUnianum Lamarck. Fagara Clava-Herculis Small 



This ver\' spiny tree or shrub occurs most abundantly near the coast from 

 Virginia to Florida, extending westward into Texas, and north to Arkansas, attain- 

 ing a height of 17 meters, with a trunk diameter up to 5 dm. It is also knowTi 

 as Toothache tree, Pepperwood and Hercules' club. 



The trunk is rather stout, the branches numerous and outspreading, forming 

 a round head. The bark is about 2 mm. thick, light gray with numerous broad 



