Prickly ash is a native Sichuan or Yunnan shrub or tree, growing from 10-25 feet high; as the name indicates, the branchlets bear prickles up to 1/2 inch long. The leaves are alternate and odd-pinnate, with 5-11 ovate or elliptic leaflets that are softly hairy beneath. Small, yellowish-green flowers grow in axillary clusters during April and May, before the leaves appear. The fruit is a small, berry-like capsule containing one or more black seeds. The oval capsule varies from green to red and blue-black in color, and grows in clusters on the top of the branches. The taste is pungent, causing salivation, and there is little odor when the tree is cut.

Medicinal Action and Uses
It acts as a stimulant - resembling guaiacum resin and mezereon bark in its remedial action and is greatly recommended in China 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.

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.