Zanthoxylum rhetsa (Roxb.) DC.
Family: Rutaceae
Common name [English]: Indian Prickly Ash
Vernacular name [Malayalam]: മുള്ളിലം
Nativity: Indo-Malaysia
Habitat: Evergreen and moist deciduous forests, also in the plains
Description: Deciduous trees, to 20 m high, bark 15-20 mm thick, brown, mottled with white, armed with conical prickles; outer bark dead, corky, pale yellow, inner bark sulphur yellow; branchlets woody, terete, sparsely prickly. Leaves imparipinnate, alternate, clustered at the tips of branchlets, estipulate; rachis 30-45 cm long slightly grooved above when young, becoming cylindric on maturity, usually prickly, glabrous; leaflets 13-23, opposite or subopposite, estipulate; petiolule 1-5 mm long; lamina 6-19 x 3-6.5 cm, oblong, elliptic-oblong, oblong-ovate, base oblique, apex acuminate or caudate-acuminate, margin entire or crenate, glabrous, punctate, coriaceous; lateral nerves 6-12 pairs, slender, pinnate, prominent; intercostae reticulate, faint. Flowers polygamous, greenish-yellow, 2-3 mm across, in terminal cymose panicles, peduncle and axis sometimes prickly; male flowers: sepals 4, ovate-triangular, fimbriate along margin, green; petals 4, free, elliptic-oblong, white or creamy yellow, valvate; stamens 4, anthers oblong, yellow; disc lobulate; pistillodes solitary; female flowers: sepals & petals as in male flowers; staminodes absent; disc pulvinate; ovary superior, 4-celled, ovules 2 in each cell; style eccentric; stigma truncate. Fruit a capsule, of 1-4 cocci, purplish, tubercled, aromatic; seeds globose, smooth, blue-black.
Flowering and fruiting: March-November
Uses: Ayurveda, Folk medicine, Siddha. Tender leaves are eaten as vegetable by Aitonias & Mishings
Cultivation: Cultivated, Wild
References
http://www.plantsoftheworldonline.org
https://indiabiodiversity.org