Zanthoxylum schinifolium Sieb. & Zucc.

A deciduous shrub, whose glabrous branches are armed with solitary spines up to 1⁄2 in. long. Leaves pinnate, 3 to 7 in. long, spiny on the main-stalk, and composed of eleven to twenty-one leaflets, which are 3⁄4 to 11⁄2 in. long, lanceolate, shallowly toothed, nearly or quite glabrous, deep green above, paler beneath. Flowers in a terminal flattish cluster, 2 to 4 in. across; each flower about 1⁄8 in. across. Fruit green; seeds blue.

Native of China, Korea and Japan. It very much resembles Z. piperitum in leaf, but differs in its spines being solitary (not in pairs) and in bearing its flowers in wider inflorescences in August at the ends of long branchlets. For the difference in flowers, see Z. piperitum. The two species belong in fact to different sections of the genus, Z. schinifolium belonging, like Z. ailanthoides, to the section Fagara, the other species treated all belonging to the section Zanthoxylum.