Witnessed by: Western

Southern prickly ash (Zanthoxylum clava-herculis), of the Rutaceae family. Thorny shrub or small tree of the coastal plain, taller than the northern kind, with pinnate glossy aromatic leaves and a trunk studded with corky prickle-bearing knobs; native range: the southeastern United States, from Virginia along the coastal plain to Florida and west to Texas, on sandy coastal soils, hammocks and old fields. Globally recognized as southern prickly ash, Hercules' club, pepperwood, sea ash, toothache tree in English. The part used is bark (of stem and root), berries. Bark in curved pieces bearing the characteristic corky pyramidal knobs, grey without and yellowish within; the taste aromatic then fiercely pungent and acrid, numbing and tingling the tongue and raising a copious flow of saliva.

In this cross-tradition database, we analyze how this substance operates across world medicine systems — tracking its traditional tastes, temperatures, tissue affinities, post-digestive effects, and planetary correspondences across Ayurveda, Unani, and Western herbalism.

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