CAROLINA PRICKLY-ASH. 
9 
which the leaves and branches are thickly beset. Stout 
stems, as thick as one’s arm, still present huge pointed 
tubercles, once small thorns, now become large projections, 
giving the stock, all, or more, .than the ordinary attributes 
of the club of Hercules. The wood like that of the West 
Indian species, the true Z. Clava Herculis, is yellow and 
solid, and hence the generic name of Zanthoxylum, formed 
of two Greek words, signifying yellow wood. The West 
India plant is considered a valuable timber tree, and made 
use of in house-building ; it attains the height of about 20 
feet. 
As a medicinal plant, the bark of the present species 
is considered a powerful stimulant, sudorific, diuretic, 
and febrifuge. Bartram mentions that it is bitter to the 
taste, slightly odorous, colouring the saliva yellow, exciting 
salivation when chewed, and that it had been employed 
with success in rheumatism, paralysis of the tongue, &c. 
Dr. Gillespie, found the West India plant in tincture, to be 
a good febrifuge ; and Manguet states that the decoction 
is anti-syphilitic. The analysis of Chevalier and Pelletier, 
gives a peculiar chrystalline substance which they call 
Zanthopicrite ; a yellow colouring matter which appears to 
be the source of the bitter taste of this bark, a red colour- 
ing matter and some salts. 
* The leaves in the present species are very smooth, pin- 
nate in about 5 or at most 6 pair and an odd one, each 
pair of leaves, send off, in common an opposite pair of long 
flat thorns ; the leaflets are ovate-lanceolate, curved, and 
acuminate, slightly serrate, the sides from the midrib very 
unequal, the lower side of the leaf being scarcely half as 
wide as the upper side. The flowers rather numerous, but 
not conspicuous, are produced in a clustered terminal pan- 
icle, with a minute calyx, but with rather large, ovate, obtuse, 
greenish-white petals. The carpels are said by Michaux 
to be usually 3, sometimes 2, but never 4. James Reed, 
