Handbook of Teees of the INoetheen States and Canada. 299 



The Prickly Ash is a small tree rarely at- 

 taining the height of 40 or 50 ft. with trunk 

 12-18 in. in diameter, but usually is much 

 smaller and often shrubby. Its tendency when 

 isolated is to develop a broad rounded top of 

 many spiny branches, and its peculiar bluish 

 gray bark of trunk is sure to attract attention. 

 This is smooth and studded with scattered 

 barnacle-like corky bossess, each tipped with 

 a thick sharp spine which, however, finally 

 falls away. A fancied resemblance in these 

 spiked trunks to the club of Hercules has sug- 

 gested its specific name, and the hooked spines 

 of its branches have given it its apt collo- 

 quial names " Wait-a-hit " and " Tear-Uanket ," 

 ■while its pungent bark has given it the name 

 " Sting-tongue " among the southern negroes. 

 This property, too, as a source of relief in 

 tooth-ache has caused it to be known as 

 Tooth-ache tree. 



Its wood is light, a cu. ft. when absolutely 

 dry weighing 31.51 lbs., soft, close-grained and 

 of little value. Its bark, however, is highly 

 valued among the southern negroes for the 

 medicinal properties mentioned of the genus. ^ 



Leaves 5-15 in. long, tardily deciduous, glabrous, 

 with more or less spiny petioles and 3-9 pairs of 

 ovate-lanceoiate, often falcate, subcoriaceous leaf- 

 lets, rounded and oblique at base, acute or acumi- 

 nate, shiny above, dull beneath, crenate-serrate. 

 Flowers appear after the leaves in large terminal 

 compound cymes : sepals minute, persistent ; 

 petals oval, greenish, Vs-V-i in. long: stamens 5 

 with slender exserted filaments ; pistils .3 or 2, 

 with sessile ovaries and short styles bearing 2- 

 lobed stigmas. Fruit mature in early autumn 

 with oblique-ovdid pitted 1-seeded capsule, the 

 seed after dehiscence hanging outside. 



Var. fruticosum Gray, is a shrubby form in 

 western Texas with short often 3-foliate pubescent 

 leaves and blunt coriaceous leaflets.^ 



1. Syn. Fagara Clava-HercuUs (L.) Small. 



2. A. W., V, 106. 



3. For genus see p. 44.3. 



