Mastic-leaf prickly ash
Zanthoxylum schinifolium · Rutaceae · 산초나무
How to spot it
Thorns of 3 to 5 mm grow alternately on the trunk, and single thorns grow apart on one-year-old twigs. The leaves have the aroma typical of sancho.
Look
- Leaves
- Once-pinnate compound leaves with 13 to 21 leaflets, lanceolate to elliptic-lanceolate, 1.5 to 5 cm long, with fine wavy teeth on the margin. They have the aroma typical of sancho.
- Flowers
- In August to September pale green flowers about 3 mm across bloom in flat-topped clusters (5 to 10 cm long) at the branch tips; they have no scent.
- Fruit
- The capsule is about 4 mm long, ripening from green-brown to red; the black seeds mature from mid-September to mid-October.
Where it grows
- In Korea
- Native (Korean Peninsula)
- Native to
- Found in China, Taiwan and Japan; in Korea it grows throughout the country except Hamgyeongbuk-do.
- Ecology
- Common in mountains and fields. Strongly cold hardy, but a sun-loving species that is weak in shade.