PRICKLY ASH
Xanthoxylum americanum
COMMON NAMES: Yellow wood, toothache tree, suterberry.
FEATURES: This beautiful little tree grows 8–15 feet high and is native to North America from Canada to
Virginia and west to the Mississippi. This perennial shrub is of the rue family (Rutaceae) and grows in
woods, thickets, and on river banks. The branches are armed with sharp scattered prickles; when the bark
is cut it shows green in the outer part and yellow in the inner. The flowers appear before the leaves, in
April and May, and are small and greenish. The fruit is an oval capsule, varying from green to red and
blue-black in color, and grows in clusters on the top of the branches. The taste is very pungent, causing
salivation, and there is little odor when the tree is cut. Xanthoxylene is its active principle.
MEDICINAL PARTS: Bark, berries.
SOLVENTS: Boiling water, dilute alcohol.
BODILY INFLUENCE: Stimulant, diaphoretic, alterative, nervine, sialagogue.
USES: Excellent innocent tonic used for convalescence from fevers and other diseases. It promotes general
perspiration, invigorates the stomach, and strengthens the digestive organs when slow, which permits
unwanted sluggish fermentation; at the same time equalizes the circulation. For more effectiveness the
infusion, or tincture preferably, of 5–10 drops prickly ash (Xanthoxylum), 3 drops goldenseal
(Hydrastis), and 1 drop capsicum should be given shortly before meals in warm water. In chronic cases
the tincture is more desirable than the infusion and may be used where there is lack of hepatic and
pancreatic activity, chronic muscular rheumatism, lumbago, scrofula, temporary paralysis, chronic female
trouble, and syphilis. J. Kloss in Back to Eden: “The berries are stimulant, antispasmodic, carminative
acting mostly on the mucous tissue removing obstructions in every part of the body.”
Prickly ash will increase the flow of saliva and moisten the dry tongue often found in liver
malfunctions, and is helpful in paralysis of the tongue and mouth. The fresh bark chewed will give relief
in the most inveterate cases of toothache; also if the inside bark is steeped in whiskey and the tincture
applied. In all the above mentioned, if the stomach is irritable and sensitive prickly ash may not be kindly
received and then the tincture should be given in warm water.
DOSE: 1 teaspoonful of the bark, cut small or granulated, to 1 cupful of boiling water; drink a mouthful at a