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Acanthopanax senticosus (Maxim.) Harms

Modern name

Eleutherococcus senticosus (Rupr. & Maxim.) Maxim.

Synonyms

Eleutherococcus senticosus Maxim.

A deciduous shrub, usually 4 to 6 ft high, but said to become occasionally twice or thrice that height. Stems erect, scarcely branched, covered with stiff bristles. Leaves composed of three or five leaflets borne on a slender, sometimes bristly stalk 3 to 5 in. long. Leaflets oval, ovate, or slightly obovate, the side ones often oblique at the base; 212 to 5 in. long, usually more than half as wide; finely toothed; upper surface dark glossy green, and furnished with stiff short hairs on the ribs and veins; paler underneath; stalk 13 in. or less long. Flowers numerous, in one or more globular umbels terminating the shoot; each umbel 112 in. diameter, on a smooth slender stalk 2 to 3 in. long; flowers purplish yellow, very small, each on a stalk 12 to 34 in. long; produced in July. Fruits subglobose, 13 in. wide.

Native of China; introduced to Kew in 1893. It is an interesting shrub with handsome foliage, remarkable for its bristly (scarcely prickly) stems, which distinguish it from all other hardy Araliads.


Genus

Acanthopanax

Other species in the genus