Hercules-club

Zanthoxylum clava-herculis

Size Availability: 3G
*Available Upon Request*

Tree
Max Size: 25′ tall x 25′ wide
Average Size: 20′ tall x 20′ wide

Clay, Loam, Sand
Full Sun, Part Shade
Usually Moist, Dry
Moderate tolerance of salt wind and occasional salt spray

AKA: Prickly Yellow-wood, Tear Blanket, Wait-a-Bit, Wild Orange, Sea Ash, Yellow Prickly-Ash, Toothache Tree, Pepper Wood, Rabbit Gum, Sting Tongue, Tongue-Bush

This deciduous tree has a showy bumpy bark and gets a yellowish color in the fall. It blooms with inconspicuous white flowers in the spring to prepare for its edible fruits to ripen in the fall. The bark has historically been chewed to treat toothache pain. Birds and other wildlife also eat the fruit, and it is the larval host for the giant swallowtail (Papilio cresphontes). It does not need special pruning, and if pruning is for the general health of the tree, should be done in winter when it is dormant.

There is a long history of Indigenous medicinal usage; in modernity, the bark and berries are stimulants to the circulatory, digestive, and lymphatic systems which make them useful for rheumatism, skin disease, nervous headaches, congestion, and varicose veins. The bark is edible; the flavor is “much like the sedative the dentist swabs on your gums before giving a shot of novocaine” (Austin, Florida Ethnobotany); chewing the bark has long been found to relieve toothaches and soothe pain, but some find the bark intolerable to chew.