Prickly ash Bot.,
 1.  A prickly shrub (Xanthoxylum Americanum) with yellowish flowers appearing with the leaves; also called toothache tree. All parts of the plant are pungent and aromatic.  The southern species is Xanthoxylum Carolinianum. --Gray.
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 Xan·thox·y·lum n.  Bot. A genus of prickly shrubs or small trees, the bark and rots of which are of a deep yellow color; prickly ash.
 Note: ☞ The commonest species in the Northern United States is Xanthoxylum Americanum.  See Prickly ash, under Prickly.
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 Ash n.
 1. Bot. A genus of trees of the Olive family, having opposite pinnate leaves, many of the species furnishing valuable timber, as the European ash (Fraxinus excelsior) and the white ash (Fraxinus Americana).
 Prickly ash (Zanthoxylum Americanum) and Poison ash (Rhus venenata) are shrubs of different families, somewhat resembling the true ashes in their foliage.
 Mountain ash. See Roman tree, and under Mountain.
 2. The tough, elastic wood of the ash tree.
 Note: Ash is used adjectively, or as the first part of a compound term; as, ash bud, ash wood, ash tree, etc.
 Hercules'-club, Hercules'-club, Hercules-club prop. n.
 1. Bot. A densely spiny ornamental tree (Zanthoxylum clava-herculis) of the rue family, growing in southeast U. S. and West Indies. [wns=1]
 Note: It belongs to the same genus as one of the trees (Zanthoxylum Americanum) called prickly ash.
 Syn: -- Hercules'-clubs, Hercules-club, Zanthoxylum clava-herculis.
 2. A small, prickly, deciduous clump-forming tree or shrub (Aralia spinosa) of eastern U.S.; also called Angelica tree and prickly ash. [wns=2]
 Syn: -- American angelica tree, devil's walking stick, Aralia spinosa.
 3. A variety of the common gourd (Lagenaria vulgaris). Its fruit sometimes exceeds five feet in length.
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 prickly ash
      n 1: any of a number of trees or shrubs of the genus Zanthoxylum
           having spiny branches
      2: Australian tree having alternate simple leaves (when young
         they are pinnate with prickly toothed margins) and slender
         axillary spikes of white flowers [syn: Orites excelsa]