Tag: Zanthoxylum

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Sichuan pepper

Botanical Name ; Sichuan pepper
Family  :  Rutaceae
Subfamily: Rutoideae
Gender : Zanthoxylum
Species : Z. piperitum
Kingdom :Plantae
Subkingdom :Tracheobionta, Vascular plants
Superdivision :Spermatophyta, Seed plants
Division : Magnoliophyta,Flower plants
Class :Magnoliopsida, Dicotyledons
Subclass: Rosidae
Order: Sapindales

Synonyms:  Zanthoxylum piperitum,  Zanthoxylum acanthophyllum, Zanthoxylum argyi, Zanthoxylum podocarpum

Common Names:
English: Sichuan pepper, Szechwan pepper or Szechuan pepper, Japanese pepper
Spanish: pimienta de Sichuán, pimienta de Sechuán, Fagara, pimienta anís, pimienta marrón, pimienta china, pimienta de Japón, Sansho, pimentero japonés (arbusto, bonsai).
Catalan: pebre japonès, pebre de Japó, pebre de Szechuan.
French: Poivrier du Japon, poivre chinois.
Italian: Pepe di Sichuan.
German: Japanischer Pfeffer, Anispfeffer, Chinesischer Pfeffer, Szechuanpfeffer.
Japanese: san-shô, shichimi.

Habitat:Sichuan pepper is native to Asia (mainly Caina)It grows in sun or partial shade. It prefers moist soils or heavy clay soils, well drained. Frost resistant up to -15 ° C.

Description:
Sichuan pepper is a deciduous shrub that grows 2 feet high by about 1 meter wide.Stem with rough colored bark, branched and covered with spines.
The leaves are pinnate, with an odd number of leaflets oval opposite (5 to 19), alternate and dark green. In fall, the leaves becom yellow stained.
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It flowers from April to June in the northern hemisphere. The Japanese pepper tree is a dioecious species, that’s to say, it has male plants and female plants. The variety to provide fruits must have both sexes.

The flowers are yellowish green, small and aromatic, fruity . They are formed on old wood, in the axils of the new branches.

The fruit is a capsule-sized sessile like peppercorns (3 to 5 mm in diameter), which grow in groups of 4 in the stem end, but only 1 or 2 fruits fail to develop.
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The capsules or fruit are reddish-brown.they have many bumps in the bark. They contain a liquid inside responsible for the characteristic pungent spiciness of this plant.

The interior has a black seed, shiny. It is customary that some fruits are empty inside.
Cultivation:
Easily grown in loamy soils in most positions, but prefers a good deep well-drained moisture retentive soil in full sun or semi-shade. A plant has been growing well for many years in deep woodland shade at Cambridge Botanical gardens, it was fruiting heavily in autumn 1996. Cultivated for its seed, which is used as a condiment in China. Flowers are formed on the old wood. The bruised leaves are strongly aromatic. Dioecious. Male and female plants must be grown if seed is required. Special Features:Inconspicuous flowers or blooms, Blooms appear periodically throughout the year.
Propagation:
Seed – best sown in a greenhouse as soon as it is ripe in the autumn. Stored seed may requires up to 3 months cold stratification, though scarification may also help. Sow stored seed in a cold frame as early in the year as possible. Germination should take place in late spring, though it might take another 12 months. Prick out the seedlings into individual pots when they are large enough to handle and grow them on in a cold frame for their first winter. Plant them out in early summer. Cuttings of half-ripe wood, July/August in a frame. Root cuttings, 3cm long, planted horizontally in pots in a greenhouse. Good percentage. Suckers, removed in late winter and planted into their permanent positions.

Edible Uses:
The plant (fruit) is used as a spice . Its leaves are also edible.

Sichuan pepper’s unique aroma and flavour is not hot or pungent like black, white, or chili peppers. Instead, it has slight lemony overtones and creates a tingly numbness in the mouth (caused by its 3% of hydroxy alpha sanshool) that sets the stage for hot spices. According to Harold McGee in On Food and Cooking, they are not simply pungent; “they produce a strange, tingling, buzzing, numbing sensation that is something like the effect of carbonated drinks or of a mild electrical current (touching the terminals of a nine-volt battery to the tongue). Sanshools appear to act on several different kinds of nerve endings at once, induce sensitivity to touch and cold in nerves that are ordinarily nonsensitive, and so perhaps cause a kind of general neurological confusion.”

Recipes often suggest lightly toasting the tiny seed pods, then crushing them before adding them to food. Only the husks are used; the shiny black seeds are discarded or ignored as they have a very gritty sand-like texture. The spice is generally added at the last moment. Star anise and ginger are often used with it in spicy Sichuan cuisine. It has an alkaline pH and a numbing effect on the lips when eaten in larger doses. Ma la (Chinese: ??; pinyin: málà; literally “numbing and spicy”), common in Sichuan cooking, is a combination of Sichuan pepper and chili pepper, and it is a key ingredient in má là hot pot, the Sichuan version of the traditional Chinese dish. It is also a common flavouring in Sichuan baked goods such as sweetened cakes and biscuits.

Sichuan pepper is also available as an oil. In this form, it is best used in stir-fry noodle dishes without hot spices. The recipe may include ginger oil and brown sugar cooked with a base of noodles and vegetables, then rice vinegar and Sichuan pepper oil are added after cooking.

Hua jiao yan is a mixture of salt and Sichuan pepper, toasted and browned in a wok and served as a condiment to accompany chicken, duck, and pork dishes. The peppercorns can also be lightly fried to make a spicy oil with various uses.

In Indonesian Batak cuisine, andaliman (a relative of Sichuan pepper) is ground and mixed with chilies and seasonings into a green sambal tinombur or chili paste, to accompany grilled pork, carp, and other regional specialties. Arsik, a Batak dish from the Tapanuli region, uses andaliman as spice.

Sichuan pepper is one of the few spices important for Nepali (Gurkha), Tibetan and Bhutanese cookery of the Himalayas, because few spices can be grown there. One Himalayan specialty is the momo, a dumpling stuffed with vegetables, cottage cheese or minced yak meat, water buffalo meat, or pork and flavoured with Sichuan pepper, garlic, ginger, and onion, served with tomato and Sichuan pepper-based gravy. Nepalese-style noodles are steamed and served dry, together with a fiery Sichuan pepper sauce.

In Korean cuisine, two species are used: Z. piperitum and Z. schinifolium.

Medicinal uses:
Native North Americans use the ground bark of Szechuan plant as a remedy for toothache.
Like in anise, these peppercorns too found application in traditional medicines as stomachic, anti-septic, anti-spasmodic, carminative, digestive, expectorant, stimulant and tonic. It is used in the treatment of gastralgia and dyspepsia due to cold with vomiting, diarrhoea, abdominal pain, ascariasis and dermal diseases. It has a local anaesthetic action and is parasiticide against the pork tapeworm (Taenia solium). The pericarp contains geraniol. In small doses this has a mild diuretic action, though large doses will inhibit the excretion of urine. There is a persistent increase in peristalsis at low concentration, but inhibition at high concentration. The leaves are carminative, stimulant and sudorific. The fruit is carminative, diuretic, stimulant, stomachic and tonic. The seed is antiphlogistic and diuretic. A decoction of the root is digestive and also used in the treatment of snakebites. The resin contained in the bark, and especially in that of the roots, is powerfully stimulant and tonic.

Other Uses: Landscape Uses:Border, Massing

Disclaimer : The information presented herein is intended for educational purposes only. Individual results may vary, and before using any supplement, it is always advisable to consult with your own health care provider.

Resources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sichuan_pepper
http://www.botanical-online.com/english/pepper_zanthoxylum_piperitum.htm
http://www.nutrition-and-you.com/sichuan-peppercorns.htm

http://www.pfaf.org/user/Plant.aspx?LatinName=Zanthoxylum+simulans

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Zanthoxylum

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Botanical Name :Zanthoxylum spp
Family: Rutaceae
Subfamily: Toddalioideae
Genus: Zanthoxylum
Kingdom: Plantae
Order: Sapindales

Common Names:  Prickly Ash , Szechuan pepper, chuan jiao, Tooth Ache Tree, yellow wood

Habitat:Zanthoxylum is native to northern and central Illinois.It occurs in upland woodlands, bottomland woodlands, savannas, wooded ravines, thinly wooded bluffs, edges of shady seeps, stream banks in wooded areas, thickets, pastures, and fence rows. It probably benefits from occasional wildfires.

Description:
Zanthoxylum  is a shrub is 4-25′ tall, branching abundantly. The bark of trunk and larger branches is gray to brown and fairly smooth, although on old large shrubs it can become shallowly furrowed with a wrinkled appearance. Twigs are brown and glabrous, while young shoots are light green and nearly glabrous to pubescent. Pairs of stout prickles up to 1/3″ long are scattered along the branches, twigs and shoots; these spines are somewhat flattened and curved. Alternate compound leaves about 6-12″ long develop along the twigs and young shoots; they are odd-pinnate with 5-11 leaflets. Individual leaflets are 1½-3¼” long and ½-1½” across; they are lanceolate-oblong to ovate-oblong with margins that are smooth to crenulate (fine rounded teeth). The upper surface of mature leaflets is medium green, minutely glandular, and glabrous, while the lower surface is pale green and short-pubescent to nearly glabrous; in the latter case, fine hairs are restricted to the major veins. Newly emerged leaflets are more hairy than mature leaflets. The lateral leaflets are sessile or nearly so, while the terminal leaflets have slender petiolules (basal stalklets) that are less than ½” long. The light green petioles (basal stalks) and rachises of the compound leaves are hairy while young, but become more glabrous with age; they have scattered small prickles along their undersides.

click to see the pictures……..>…(01).....(1)..…...(2)…….(3)..…..(4)..……...(5)…

Prickly Ash is almost always dioecious, producing male (staminate) and female (pistillate) flowers on separate shrubs. These flowers are arranged in small axillary clusters (cymes) along the branches of the preceding year. Individual male flowers are a little less than ¼” across, consisting of 4-5 erect petals and 4-5 stamens; there is no calyx. The petals of male flowers are yellowish green to orange and oblong in shape. Individual female flowers are about ¼” across, consisting of 4-5 erect petals and 2-5 separate pistils; there is no calyx. The petals of female flowers are also yellowish green to orange and oblong in shape. The ovaries of the pistils are glossy green and ovoid in shape; their elongated styles tend to converge at their tips. The blooming period occurs during mid- to late spring before the leaves develop. Afterwards, the female flowers are replaced by berry-like follicles (fruits that open along one-side) about 1/3″ long that are ovoid-globoid in shape with a pitted surface. As the follicles mature, they change from green to red to brown, eventually splitting open to expose shiny black seeds with oily surfaces. Each follicle contains 1-2 seeds. Both the crushed foliage and fruits are highly aromatic, somewhat resembling the fragrance of lemon peels. The root system produces underground runners, from which clonal offsets are produced. This shrub often forms clonal colonies of varying size.

Cultivation: The preference is full or partial sun and moist to dry-mesic conditions. Different types of soil are tolerated, including those that contain loam, clay-loam, and rocky material. This shrub can adapt to light shade, but it may fail to produce flowers and fruit. It has relatively few problems with pests and disease organisms

Medicinal uses:
Paresthesia is the mouth-numbing effect believed to be caused by hydroxyl-alpha-sanshool, an alkylamide found in Zanthoxylum spp.  Anyone who has bitten into a Sichuan pepper can attest to the unique sensation of mild electric shock or “pins and needles” in their mouth.  Researchers have likened this experience to that of “touching their tongue to the terminals of a 9-volt battery”, which is quite different from the burning pain of chilli peppers or the punch of fresh wasabi.

The numbing and analgesic effects of Zanthoxylum have been exploited for centuries as a natural remedy to alleviate acute and chronic pain.  In Nigeria, the roots are used as a chewing stick to give a warm and numbing effect.  This use is believed to be beneficial to the elderly and to those with sore gums and other oral disease conditions.  Zanthoxylum americanum is commonly known as toothache tree in North America and can be found in the eastern US as well as Ontario and Quebec in Canada.

Zanthoxylum spp. have traditionally been administered for a variety of maladies in addition to oral diseases.  In India, the leaf is used against fever, dyspepsia and bronchitis.  In Manipur, India, the seed oil is applied against baldness and bark powder is used to treat toothache (Singh and Singh 2004).  In a 2008 report titled “Indigenous Vegetables of India with a Potential for Improving Livelihoods,” ML Chadha from the ARVDC Regional Center for South Asia reports that Z. hamiltonianum is used as both a vegetable and a remedy; dried, tender leaves are eaten as a vegetable and powdered fruits are consumed to increase the appetite.  The young stems are employed as a toothbrush in cases of toothache and bleeding gums, whereas the roots and bark are used to cure malaria.  Though generally eaten as a vegetable, the leaves of Z. rhetsa are also consumed to kill tapeworms and reduce infection (Chadha 2008).

Scientific studies are validating the traditional medical role of various Zanthoxylum products.  Research has demonstrated the potential of Z. rhetsa leaf extract as a de-worming remedy; it has been found to have a pronounced effect against larval eggs, comparable to a commercial drug (Yadav and Tangpu  2009).  Bark extract from Z. rhetsa has been shown to lessen abdominal contractions and diarrhoea in mice (Rahman 2002).  Other potential pharmaceutical applications include cancer treatment and anti-oxidant, anti-coagulant and anti-bacterial agents.

At the industrial level, Z. armatum has been shown to contain high amounts of linalool (Jain et al. 2001), a compound used commercially as a precursor to vitamin E production and also in soaps, detergents and insecticides.  Clearly, Zanthoxylum spp. have potential beyond traditional uses as spices and folk medicine.

Disclaimer:
The information presented herein is intended for educational purposes only. Individual results may vary, and before using any supplements, it is always advisable to consult with your own health care provider

Resources:
http://www.illinoiswildflowers.info/trees/plants/prickly_ash.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zanthoxylum
http://www.anniesremedy.com/herb_detail403.php
http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs035/1102506082274/archive/1104323477745.html

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Chi-it

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Botanical Name :Zanthoxylum alatum Roxb.
Family : Rutaceae
Subfamily:Toddalioideae
Genus: Zanthoxylum
Kingdom:Plantae
Order: Sapindales
Family: Rutaceae

Scientific names :-Zanthoxylum alatum Roxb. ,Zanthoxylum armatum DC.  ,Zanthoxylum americanum

Common names:Chi-it (Ig.),Sibit-paklauit (Ig.),Chinese pepper (Engl.),Prickly ash (Engl.) ,Toothache tree (Engl.) ,Yellow wood (Engl.) ,Suterberry (Engl.),Hua jiao (Chin.)

Habitat :Chi-it is found in the Islands only in Benguet, Luzon, in thickets about limestone cliffs and bowlders, at an altitude of 1,300 to 1,500 meters. It is also reported to occur in India to southeastern China.

Description:
.This is a deciduous Shrub growing to 4 m (13ft 1in) or small tree, which is almost entirely smooth and has a strong aromatic smell. The bark, which is corky, has conspicuous young stems with thick conical prickles rising from a corky base. The spines are shinning and sharp and grow on branchlets. The leaves are alternate, with commonly 2 to 6 pairs of leaflets. The petioles and rachis are narrowly winged. The leaflets are elliptic-lanceolate, 2 to 8 centimeters long and 1 to 1.8 centimeters wide. The flowers are small, yellow, usually unisexual, and borne in dense lateral panicles. The fruit is usually a solitary carpel dehiscing ventrally, about 3 millimeters in diameter, tubercled, red, and strongly aromatic.

You may click to see the pictures

It is hardy to zone 6. The flowers are dioecious (individual flowers are either male or female, but only one sex is to be found on any one plant so both male and female plants must be grown if seed is required)The plant is not self-fertile.

Cultivation:
Prefers a good deep well-drained moisture retentive soil in full sun or semi-shade. This species is closely related to Z. planispinum. Flowers are formed on the old wood. Dioecious. Male and female plants must be grown if seed is required.

Propagation    ;-
Seed – best sown in a greenhouse as soon as it is ripe in the autumn. Stored seed may requires up to 3 months cold stratification, though scarification may also help. Sow stored seed in a cold frame as early in the year as possible. Germination should take place in late spring, though it might take another 12 months. Prick out the seedlings into individual pots when they are large enough to handle and grow them on in a cold frame for their first winter. Plant them out in early summer. Cuttings of half-ripe wood, July/August in a frame. Root cuttings, 3cm long, planted horizontally in pots in a greenhouse. Good percentage. Suckers, removed in late winter and planted into their permanent positions.

Edible Uses  :
The seed is ground into a powder and used as a condiment. A pepper substitute, it is widely used in the Orient. A light roasting brings out more of the flavour. The seed is an ingredient of the famous Chinese ‘five spice’ mixture. The fruit is rather small but is produced in clusters which makes harvesting easy. Each fruit contains a single seed. Young leaves are used as a condiment.

Constituents:
*Bark yields a bitter crystalline principle, identifcal to berberine, and a volatile oil and resin. The carpels yield a volatile oil, resin, a yellow acid principle, and a crystalline solid body, xanthoxylin.
*Carpels of the fruit yield an essential oil which is isomeric with turpentine ahd like eucalyptus oil in odor and properties.
*The bark contains berberine.
*The essential oil from the seeds consists entirely – over 85% – of the hydrocarbone 1-a-phellandrene and also a small quantity of linalool and an unidentified sesquiterpene.
*Bark yields active compounds: alkaloids (g-fagarine, b-fagarine, magnoflorine, laurifoline, nitidine, chelerythrine, tambetarine and cadicine), coumarins (xanthyletin, zanthoxyletin, alloxanthyletin), and resin, tannin and volatile oil.

Properties:
Fruit considered antiseptic, carminative, disinfectant, deodorant, stomachic.
Sino-Annamites consider the leaves and fruit as carminative, sudorific, emmenagogue and astringent.

Medicinal Uses:
Parts used ; Bark, seeds, fruits, leaves.
Odontalgic;  Stimulant;  Stomachic;  Tonic;  Miscellany.

The seeds and the bark are used as an aromatic tonic in the treatment of fevers, dyspepsia and cholera. The fruits, branches and thorns are considered to be carminative and stomachic. They are used as a remedy for toothache.

Folkloric;
*Decoction or infusion of bark and seeds used as an aromatic tonic in fevers, dyspepsia, and cholera.
*Fruit, as well as the branches and thorns, used as a remedy for toothache; also, as carminative and stomachic.
*Elsewhere, used for asthma, bronchitis, cholera, fever, indigestion, toothaches, varicose veins and rheumatism.

Studies
• Phenolic Constituents: Study isolated two new phenolic constituents from the seeds – 3-methoxy-11-hydroxy-6,8-dimethylcarboxylate biphenyl and 3,5,6,7-tetrahydroxy-3′,4′-dimethoxyflavone-5-?-d-xylopyranoside along with five known compounds.
• Antifungal / Insect Repellent: Essential oil of the fruits of ZA showed repellent activity against insect Allacophora foveicollis and fungistatic activity against 24 fungi, including aflatoxin-producing strains of A flavus and A parasiticus.
• Hepatoprotective: Study of the ethanolic extract of leaves of Z armatum on CCl4-induced hepatotoxicity in rats showed significant decrease in liver enzymes and liver inflammation, supported by histopath studies on the liver. Results exhibited significant hepatoprotective activity.
• Insecticidal: Study of the essential oil of Zanthoxylum armatum showed high and rapid poison activity on Aedes albopictus and Culex quinquefasciatus, showing a potential as natural insecticides against mosquitoes.

Other Uses :
Miscellany;  Teeth;  Wood.

The fruit contains 1.5% essential oil. The fruit is used to purify water. Toothbrushes are made from the branches. Wood – heavy, hard, close grained. Used for walking sticks.

Disclaimer:
The information presented herein is intended for educational purposes only. Individual results may vary, and before using any supplements, it is always advisable to consult with your own health care provider.

Resources:
http://www.pfaf.org/user/Plant.aspx?LatinName=Zanthoxylum%20alatum

Click to access chi-it.pdf

http://www.stuartxchange.com/Chi-it.html
http://www.ogrodnick.pl/opisy/zanthoxylum_alatum_opis.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zanthoxylum

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Zanthoxylum rhetsa

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Botanical name : Zanthoxylum rhetsa (Roxb) DC.
Family: Rutaceae
Subfamily: Toddalioideae
Genus: Zanthoxylum
Kingdom: Plantae
Order: Sapindales.

Scientific names :–
Zanthoxylum rhetsa (Roxb.) DC.
Zanthoxylum oxyphyllum F.-Vill.
Zanthoxylum limonella Alston Kayatena (Tag.)
Fagara budrunga Roxb. Kaytana (Tag.)
Fagara rhetsa Roxb. Kayutana (Tag.)
Fagara piperita Blanco

Common names: Kasabang (Ilk.), Kasalang (Sbl.),Kayatena (Tag.),Indian Ivy Rue; Cape Yellowwood

Sanskrit  synonymes:
Lakhuvalkala, Bidalaghni, Asvaghra
Plant name in different languages :
English  : Indian prickly ash-tree
Hindi  : Badrang
Malayalam : Mullilam, Mulliyllam, Karimurikku, Kattumurikku

Habitat :Altitudinal range from sea level to 200 m. Grows in monsoon forest and drier, more seasonal rain forest. Also occurs in Asia and Malesia.
Throughout Western Ghats, growing wild in semi deciduous forests.

Description:
A moderate sized armed tree grows up to 35 meters in height. Leaves compound, imparipinnate and crowded at the end of branches. Leaflets ovate-lanceolate, acuminate, glabrous and scenty. Flowers yellowish green, small, in terminal panicles. Fruits small globose, fragrant berries contain single seed.

Click to see more pictures:

Stem
Corky bumps or squat, conical prickles usually present on the trunk. Dead bark layered, mustard yellow when cut. Blaze finely layered, darkens markedly on exposure.

Leaves
Leaflet blades about 4-9 x 2-3.5 cm, leaflet stalks about 2-3 mm long. Lateral leaflets unequal-sided, particularly towards the base. Oil dots sparsely scattered in the leaflet but always present at the base of each indentation on the margin of the leaflet blade. Midrib depressed on the upper surface. Lateral veins forming definite loops inside the blade margin. Leaf scars on the twigs show three definite bundles of vascular strands.

Flowers
Inflorescence about 8-14 cm long, shorter than the leaves. Sepals about 0.5-1 mm long. Petals 1-2 mm long. Staminal filaments about 2.5-3 mm long, inserted outside the disk, anthers about 1.5 mm long. Disk irregularly lobed, about 0.5 mm high. Ovary about 1 mm long, style eccentric.

Fruit
Fruits globose, about 6-7 mm diam., surface marked by numerous oil glands. Seeds +/- globular, about 6 mm diam.

Seedlings
Cotyledons orbicular to oblong, rather thick, about 5-6 x 5 mm, margins crenate or appearing crenate because of the marginal oil dots. At the tenth leaf stage: leaf compound, with about nine leaflets. Leaflet blades with about 3-6 teeth on each side. Each tooth with a large oil dot at the base of the sinus. Compound leaf rhachis grooved on the upper surface and armed with curved red spines about 1.5 mm long.

Constituents:-
*Fruit with peel yields volatile oil, 5.8 % with 90% terpenene (sabinene).
*Seeds contain 29.7 % volatile oil.

Properities:
*Fruit is considered stimulant, astringent, aromatic, digestive.
*Bark considered aromatic and aphrodisiac.

Medicinal Uses:-
Useful part : Bark, Leaves, Seeds.
Ayurvedic properities:
Rasa    : Tikta, Kashaya
Guna   : Lakhu, Rooksha
Virya   : Ushna

Plant pacifies vitiated vata, kapha, asthma, bronchitis, cardiac ailments, stomatitis, pyorrhea, hemorrhoids, diarrhea, arthritis, boils, ulcers, poison, and traumatic eye injury.

Folkloric:
*Bark, pounded and mixed with oil, used externally as remedy for stomach pains.
*Decoction of bark taken internally for chest pains.
*Bark chewed and applied to snake bites.
*Fruit used for urinary complaints and dyspepsia caused by atrabilis (the melancholic “humor”). Also used in some forms of diarrhea.
*Bark is considered a bitter aromatic and aphrodisiac.
*Fruit, mixed with honey, taken for rheumatism.
*In Goa, root bark used as purgative for kidneys.
*Essential oil used for cholera.
*In India, traditionally used in diabetes and inflammation; as antispasmodic, diuretic and anti-inflammatory. Paste prepared by rubbing the hard spines on rock and water is applied to breasts to relieve pain and increase lactation in nursing mothers.

Studies
• Antiparasitism: Study investigated the efficacy of Z. rhetsa leaf extract against experimental Hymenolepsis diminuta infections in albino rats. The efficacy of the extract was moderate against immature and adult stages of parasite. Results suggest the leaves of ZR possess significant anticestodal property and supports its use in folk medicine.
• Bark Constituents: Study of bark spines yielded dodecanoic acid, 9,12,octadecanoic acid, oleic acid, octadecanoic acid, 2-hydoxyl-1,3-propanediyl ester, and 1,2-benzenedicarboxylic acid, diisooctylester – phytochemicals that showed various properties: antioxidant, antimicrobial, larvicidal, anti-inflammatory and anti-arthritic.

Disclaimer:
The information presented herein is intended for educational purposes only. Individual results may vary, and before using any supplements, it is always advisable to consult with your own health care provider.

Resources:
http://keys.trin.org.au:8080/key-server/data/0e0f0504-0103-430d-8004-060d07080d04/media/Html/taxon/Zanthoxylum_rhetsa.htm
http://www.stuartxchange.com/Kayetana.html
http://ayurvedicmedicinalplants.com/plants/1192.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zanthoxylum

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Herbs & Plants

Ash, Prickly (Xanthoxylum Americanum)

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Botanical Name: Xanthoxylum Americanum (MILL.)

Family: N.O. Rutacea
Subfamily: Toddalioideae
Genus: Zanthoxylum
Kingdom: Plantae
Order: Sapindales

Synonyms: Toothache Tree. Yellow Wood. Suterberry. Clava-herculis and americanum
Common Names :  Prickly Ash Bark , Szechuan pepper, chuan jiao, Tooth Ache Tree, yellow wood,Hercules’ Club.
Parts Used: Root-bark, berries.

Habitat : Native to central and eastern portions of the United States and Canada.  Rare in the South, it is more common in the northern United States. It is listed as Endangered in Florida, Maryland, and New Hampshire; and as Special Concern in Tennessee. It can be found in Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Washington, DC, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, North Dakota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia, Vermont, Wisconsin and West Virginia in the United States, and in Ontario and Quebec in Canada. It is found on upland rocky hillsides and on moist low-lying sites, in open woods, on bluffs or in thickets.

Taxonomy
Originally described by Scottish botanist Philip Miller in 1768, Zanthoxylum americanum is a member of the wide-ranging genus Zanthoxylum in the Rutaceae family, which includes many species with aromatic foliage. Miller, who spelled the name Xanthoxylum, described the plant in the eighth edition of his Gardeners Dictionary, as “grow[ing] naturally in Pensylvania [sic] and Maryland


Description:
It is  is an aromatic shrub or tree .It can grow to 10 meters (33 ft) tall with a diameter at breast height (DBH) of 15 centimeters (5.9 in). It produces membranous leaflets and axillary flower clusters. The wood is not commercially valuable, but oil extracts from the bark have been used in alternative medicine and have been studied for antifungal and cytotoxic properties

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The plant has membranous leaflets numbering between 5-11 and growing in opposite pairs. It has “axillary flower and fruit clusters”. The buds are hairy. Dark green leaves are bitter-aromatic, with crenate margins.  The berries begin red   and turn deep blue to black,   with stalked fruit pods.   Flowers are dioecious, with yellow-green petals.
Cultivation:
Prefers a good deep well-drained moisture retentive soil in full sun or semi-shade. A relatively fast-growing plant in the wild, it often forms thickets by means of root suckers. All parts of the plant are fragrant. The bruised foliage has a delicious resinous orange-like perfume. Dioecious. Male and female plants must be grown if seed is required. Flowers are formed on the old wood[206]. Special Features:North American native, Attracts butterflies, Inconspicuous flowers or blooms, Blooms appear periodically throughout the year.
Propagation:
Seed – best sown in a greenhouse as soon as it is ripe in the autumn. Stored seed may requires up to 3 months cold stratification, though scarification may also help. Sow stored seed in a cold frame as early in the year as possible. Germination should take place in late spring, though it might take another 12 months. Prick out the seedlings into individual pots when they are large enough to handle and grow them on in a cold frame for their first winter. Plant them out in early summer. Cuttings of half-ripe wood, July/August in a frame. Root cuttings, 3cm long, planted horizontally in pots in a greenhouse. Good percentage. Suckers, removed in late winter and planted into their permanent positions.
Edible Uses: Condiment.

Seed – cooked. It is used as a condiment. A pepper substitute. The fruit is rather small, about 4 – 5m in diameter, but is produced in dense clusters which makes harvesting easy. Each fruit contains a single seed.

Constituents: The barks of numerous species of Xanthoxylum and the allied genus Fagara have been used medicinally. There are two principal varieties of Prickly Ash in commerce: X. Americanum (Northern Prickly Ash) and Fagara Clava-Herculis (Southern Prickly Ashj, which is supposed to be more active. Although not absolutely identical, the two Prickly Ash barks are very similar in their active constituents. Both contain small amounts of volatile oil, fat, sugar, gum, acrid resin, a bitter alkaloid, believed to be Berberine and a colourless, tasteless, inert, crystalline body, Xanthoxylin, slightly different in the two barks. Both yield a large amount of Ash: 12 per cent. or more. The name Xanthoxylin is also applied to a resinous extractive prepared by pouring a tincture of the drug into water.

The fruits of both the species are used similarly to the barks. Their constituents have not been investigated, but they apparently agree in a general way with those of the bark.

The drug is practically never adulterated. The Northern bark occurs in commerce in curved or quilled fragments about 1/24 inch thick, externally brownish grey, with whitish patches, faintly furrowed, with some linearbased, two-edged spines about 1/4 inch long. The fracture is short, green in the outer, and yellow in the inner part. The Southern bark, which is more frequently sold, is 1/12 inch thick and has conical, corky spines, sometimes 4/5, inch in height.

Medicinal Uses:
Traditional
An oil extracted from the bark and berries of the prickly-ash (both this species and Zanthoxylum clava-herculis) is used medicinally. The extract may act as a stimulant, and historic medicinal use has included use “for chronic rheumatism, typhoid and skin diseases and impurity of the blood…” as well as for digestive ailments. Grieve states, “The berries are considered even more active than the bark, being carminative and antispasmodic, and are used as an aperient and for dyspepsia and indigestion; a fluid extract of the berries being given, in doses of 10 to 30 drops.” The bark has been chewed for toothaches, and a tea from the berries has been used for sore throats and as a diuretic.

Traditional Chinese Medicine uses prickly ash to warm the “middle burner,” the energies in the middle of the body that power the immune response and help digest food.

It acts as a stimulant – resembling guaiacum resin and mezereon bark in its remedial action and is greatly recommended in the United States for chronic rheumatism, typhoid and skin diseases and impurity of the blood, administered either in the form of fluid extract or in doses of 10 grains to 1/2 drachm in the powdered form, three times daily.

The following formula has also become popular in herbal medicine: Take 1/2 oz. each of Prickly Ash Bark, Guaiacum Raspings and Buckbean Herb, with 6 Cayenne Pods. Boil in 1 1/2 pint of water down to 1 pint . Dose: a wineglassful three or four times daily.

On account of the energetic stimulant properties of the bark, it produces when swallowed a sense of heat in the stomach, with more or less general arterial excitement and tendency to perspiration and is a useful tonic in debilitated conditions of the stomach and digestive organs, and is used in colic, cramp and colera, in fever, ague, lethargy, for cold hands and feet and complaints arising from a bad circulation.

A decoction made by boiling an ounce in 3 pints of water down to a quarter may be given in the quantity of a pint, in divided doses, during the twenty-four hours. As a counter-irritant, the decoction may be applied on compresses. It has also been used as an emmenagogue.

The powdered bark forms an excellent application to indolent ulcers and old wounds for cleansing, stimulating, drying up and healing the wounds. The pulverized bark is also used for paralytic affections and nervous headaches and as a topical irritant the bark, either in powdered form, or chewed, has been a very popular remedy for toothache in America, hence the origin of a common name of the tree in the States: Toothache Tree.

The berries are considered even more active than the bark, being carminative and antispasmodic, and are used as an aperient and for dyspepsia and indigestion; a fluid extract of the berries being given, in doses of 10 to 30 drops.

Xanthoxylin. Dose, 1 to 2 grains.

Both berries and bark are used to make a good bitter.


Modern studies
There have been some modern studies of the oil’s constituents and antifungal properties  and cytotoxic effects.

Other Uses: Landscape Uses:Border, Massing. The fruits have been used by young men as a perfume. Wood – soft. It weighs 35lb per cubic foot. Of little use.

You may click to see :-> What Is Prickly Ash Bark? :

Known Hazaards:  Tannins may reduce gut iron absorption. Possble nervous system stimulation. Excessive ingestion may interfere with anticoagulant therapy

Disclaimer:The information presented herein is intended for educational purposes only. Individual results may vary, and before using any supplements, it is always advisable to consult with your own health care provider.

Resources:
http://www.anniesremedy.com/herb_detail403.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zanthoxylum_americanum
http://botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/a/ashpr077.html

http://www.pfaf.org/user/Plant.aspx?LatinName=Zanthoxylum+americanum

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