ARALIACEZ—GINSENG FAMILY 
HERCULES’ CLUB. ANGELICA-TREE 
Aralia spinosa. 
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. 
Bark,.—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 
pinne 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 buda 
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. 
165, 
