What plant is wild prickly ash? Learn about it in one article

Wild prickly ash is also known as green prickly ash, local prickly ash, etc. It is a deciduous shrub or small tree in the genus Zanthoxylum of the Rutaceae family. It can be planted alone or used as a protective thorn hedge. It grows mostly in the wild and can also be cultivated artificially. Its form is similar to that of prickly ash, and the main difference is that the leaves of wild prickly ash are thickly papery, with transparent glandular dots on both sides. The fruit is nearly spherical and ranges in color from yellow-brown to purplish-red. Used as medicine, it warms the middle and removes dampness, expels wind and chases away cold, and has the effects of relieving pain, strengthening the stomach, resisting bacteria, and expelling roundworms.

The leaves of wild prickly ash have 5 to 15 leaflets. The leaf rachis has a narrow leaf-like margin, and the upper surface is grooved and sunken. The leaflets are opposite, sessile, or those at the base of the leaf rachis have very short petiolules. They are ovate, ovate-elliptic, or lanceolate, 2.5 to 7 cm long and 1.5 to 4 cm wide, slightly asymmetrical on both sides, with an acute or short-pointed apex, often notched, with many oil dots that are semi-transparent after drying and often slightly raised, sometimes with pit-like depressions. The leaf surface often has bristle-like fine prickles, the midvein is sunken, and the leaf margin has distant, shallow, blunt teeth.

The cymose inflorescence of wild prickly ash is terminal, 1 to 5 cm long. The tepals are 5 to 8, narrowly lanceolate, broadly ovate, or nearly triangular, sometimes differing in size and shape, about 2 mm long, and pale yellow-green. The male flowers have 5 to 8 stamens. The filaments and the semicircular raised rudimentary pistil are both pale green, and the tip of the connective has 1 oil dot that turns dark brown-black after drying. The tepals of the female flowers are narrowly long lanceolate, with 2 to 3 carpels, and the style bends obliquely backward. The flowering period is March to May, and the fruiting period is July to September.

Wild prickly ash is suitable for warm and humid conditions and deep, fertile loam or sandy loam. It has strong sprouting ability, is cold-resistant, drought-resistant, likes sunlight, has strong disease resistance, and its dormant buds have a long lifespan, so it tolerates heavy pruning. It is not tolerant of waterlogging, and short-term water accumulation can cause death. It is produced in Qinghai, Gansu, Shandong, Henan, Anhui, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Hubei, Jiangxi, Taiwan, China, Fujian, Hunan, and northeastern Guizhou, and is found on flat land, low hills, or slightly higher mountain areas under sparse or dense forests.

The fruit of wild prickly ash is used as a herbal medicine. It is warm in nature, pungent in taste, and numbs the tongue. It has the effects of warming the middle and dispersing cold, strengthening the stomach and removing dampness, relieving pain and killing parasites, detoxifying and regulating qi, and relieving itching and removing fishy odors. It can be used to treat conditions such as food stagnation, retained fluids, hiccups, vomiting, joint and muscle pain caused by wind-cold-damp pathogens, cold pain in the epigastrium and abdomen, diarrhea, dysentery, roundworms, and genital itching.