Chinese prickly ash (Dahongpao variety)

Chinese prickly ash (Dahongpao variety)

　　A deciduous shrub or small tree, 3–7 m tall, with usually enlarged thorny stems; branches are gray or brownish-gray, bearing fine lenticels and slightly obliquely upward-growing thorns; current-year twigs are covered with short soft hairs. Odd-pinnate compound leaves have narrowly winged leaf axes; leaflets number 5–11, are papery, ovate or ovate-oblong, sessile or nearly so, 1.5–7 cm long and 1–3 cm wide, with acuminate or slightly retuse tips, nearly rounded bases, finely serrated margins, and often a cluster of brownish long soft hairs on both sides of the midrib base on the surface, but no spines. Terminal cymose panicles bear flowers that are mostly white or pale yellow, with 4–8 perianth segments; staminate flowers have 5–7 stamens, while pistillate flowers have 3–4 (rarely 6–7) carpels with sessile ovaries. The fruit is spherical, usually in clusters of 2–3, mostly green, red, purplish-red, or purplish-black in color, densely covered with warty oil glands.