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Seasonal yields
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Plant · P-650
Prickly Ash
Zanthoxylum americanum
Prickly Ash is a thicket-forming, thorny eastern North American shrub whose bark gave it the common name toothache tree - chewing it numbs the mouth and it has a long history as a remedy for toothache, rheumatism and digestive complaints. Its small red-to-black fruits work as a pepper substitute, and its bruised leaves smell resinous and orange-like. It runs by underground suckers, and left alone a single plant spreads into a clonal thicket that makes a self-building, thorny stock barrier needing no maintenance beyond keeping a mown strip at the edge. It is dioecious and not self-fertile, so a fruiting stand needs both sexes planted from separate parent stock; a single plant's own suckers are all one sex and will never fruit on their own.
Record at a glance
Growing profile
- Sun
- Full Sun · Partial Sun
- USDA zone
- USDA 3–7
- Soil
- Sand · Loam · Clay
- Moisture
- Well-Drained · Moderate
Vertical layer
Shrub- Soil pH
- 6–7.5
- Plant type
- Perennial
- Mature height
- 15–20 ft
- Mature spread
- 10–15 ft
- Plant spacing
- 10–15 ft
- Root type
- Rhizome
- Spread pattern
- Root
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The deeper layer
Plan what comes next.
- Primary
- Locked ecological function
- Secondary
- Locked ecological function
- Byproduct
- Locked ecological function
Behind the record
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