''Zanthoxylum pilosulum'' () is a woody plant from the Rutaceae family native to western and northwestern

Sichuan Sichuan (; zh, c=, labels=no, ; zh, p=Sìchuān; alternatively romanized as Szechuan or Szechwan; formerly also referred to as "West China" or "Western China" by Protestant missions) is a province in Southwest China occupying most of the ...

and southern

Shaanxi Shaanxi (alternatively Shensi, see #Name, § Name) is a landlocked Provinces of China, province of China. Officially part of Northwest China, it borders the province-level divisions of Shanxi (NE, E), Henan (E), Hubei (SE), Chongqing (S), Sichu ...

and

Gansu Gansu (, ; alternately romanized as Kansu) is a province in Northwest China. Its capital and largest city is Lanzhou, in the southeast part of the province. The seventh-largest administrative district by area at , Gansu lies between the Tibet ...

provinces,

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

Description

''Zanthoxylum pilosulum'' grows as a

shrub A shrub (often also called a bush) is a small-to-medium-sized perennial woody plant. Unlike herbaceous plants, shrubs have persistent woody stems above the ground. Shrubs can be either deciduous or evergreen. They are distinguished from trees ...

, reaching a height of 1-2 meters. Its branches are strong and straight with a flat base, covered with hairs ( trichomes), and bear many spines and

internodes A stem is one of two main structural axes of a vascular plant, the other being the root. It supports leaves, flowers and fruits, transports water and dissolved substances between the roots and the shoots in the xylem and phloem, stores nutrien ...

. The petioles are slender and the leaflets are small and

sessile Sessility, or sessile, may refer to: * Sessility (motility), organisms which are not able to move about * Sessility (botany), flowers or leaves that grow directly from the stem or peduncle of a plant * Sessility (medicine), tumors and polyps that ...

. Each leaf has 7 to 11 leaflets, each measuring 0.5-3 cm long and 0.4-1.5 cm wide, except for the terminal leaflet, which measures 5 cm long and 2.5 cm wide. They are ovate to elliptical and the edges are crenate. After drying, the leaves are pale green with a papery texture, and the lateral and branch veins are clearly visible on the surface. There are oil glands in the leaf margin cracks, which can allow ''Z. pilosulum'' to be distinguished from its relative '' Zanthoxylum piasezkii''. The flowers are

terminal Terminal may refer to: Computing Hardware * Terminal (electronics), a device for joining electrical circuits together * Terminal (telecommunication), a device communicating over a line * Computer terminal, a set of primary input and output devic ...

, with 5 to 8

tepals A tepal is one of the outer parts of a flower (collectively the perianth). The term is used when these parts cannot easily be classified as either sepals or petals. This may be because the parts of the perianth are undifferentiated (i.e. of very ...

per flower, and the rachis is short and shaggy. On the male flower the tepals are lanceolate, measuring 1.2-1.5 mm long and 2 to 3 times as wide. The male flower has 5-6 stamens. The female flowers generally have 4

carpels Gynoecium (; ) is most commonly used as a collective term for the parts of a flower that produce ovules and ultimately develop into the fruit and seeds. The gynoecium is the innermost whorl of a flower; it consists of (one or more) ''pistils'' ...

, but occasionally they have only 3 or, rarely, 2. The fruit follicles are purple-red in color with a diameter of 4-5 mm and occasional protruding oil glands. The seeds are similar in shape to, but smaller than, those of ''

Zanthoxylum bungeanum ''Zanthoxylum bungeanum '' is a species of plant in the family Rutaceae. It is one of the sources of the spice Sichuan pepper. The plant is native to North-Central China, South-Central China, Southeast China, East Himalayas The Himalayas ...

''. The flowering period is from April to May, and the fruiting period is from July to August. The plant grows in arid mountain areas at an altitude of 2500-2700 meters.

References

pilosulum Articles with 'species' microformats {{Rutaceae-stub