#Pellucid dots full

Properly placed, hercules-club - with its thorns and pellucid dots - can be a great addition to your landscape for birds, pollinators, and “spice”. According to a recent article titled Florida Szechuan Pepper: A Financial Opporuntity, in the Palmetto, the quarterly journal of the Florida Native Plant Society, Hercules-club valve capsules have a “pungent lemony flavor” that “was soon overwhelmed by a remarkably strong numbing of tongue and lips”. The capsule valves of other species of Zanthoxylum are used as a spice in China, India, Korea, Indonesia, Africa, and other countries. In the late spring or early summer, fruits begin to form in capsules that ripen from green to tan …Įach capsule contains a single glossy black seed. The flowers are significant nectar and pollen source for European honeybees ( Apis mellifiera) and other pollinators. Terminal multi-stemmed clusters (racemes) of tiny yellow-green flowers come in the early spring. That is why this plant is sometimes called the toothache tree. If you chew on a leaf, these aromatic oils will numb your mouth and impart a lemony flavor.

Plants in the citrus family, Rutaceae, and in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae, often have pellucid dots, Hercules-club is part of the citrus family, and its pellucid dots contain aromatic “citrusy” oils. Hold a leaf up to the light to see its pellucid dots (a.k.a. The tops of its leaflets are dark green, and the underside is lighter green. Hercules-club has pinnately compound leaves with significant spines along its rachis (leafstems) that are reddish in color. With time the spines and armor wear away …

#Pellucid dots full

They grow quite quickly in full sun, and, when they are young, it is easy to understand the common name Hercules-club from their vicious looking bark … Hercules-club trees can grow to be 50′ tall, especially in shady conditions as at ORCA. Likely you will need to look up to spot them. You will find it thriving and reproducing where it was planted on the north side of the main trail near the culvert crossing. This native tree was planted at the Oslo Riverfront Conservation Area (ORCA) in 2001 as part of a demonstration planting in a disturbed area. This shift from direct defence to indirect defence with leaf ageing supports the ‘optimal defence theory’: plants have evolved multiple defence traits to maximize their fitness.Pepperbark, toothache tree, tickle tongue, and prickly ash are among the many common names given to the deciduous temperate tree also called Hercules-club ( Zanthoxylum clava-herculis). However, the plant uses indirect defence traits for middle‐aged leaves. Young M. japonicus leaves are defended against herbivores through the use of direct defence traits such as trichomes and pellucid dots. Laboratory bioassay revealed that against Ap. strigosa and small As. selenaria larvae, trichomes and pellucid dots in young leaves functioned well, although those in middle‐aged leaves did not.ĥ. Most herbivory was attributable to As. selenaria. On M. japonicus, we found 11 herbivorous insects, among which Ap. strigosa and As. selenaria were the principal herbivores.Ĥ. The damaged leaf areas of ant‐excluded plants were much larger than those of control plants.

The respective quantities of EFNs that were actually secreting nectar, the pearl bodies, and the ants on middle‐aged leaves were greater than those on leaves of other ages. Finally, to confirm the effectiveness of trichomes and pellucid dots for defence against two herbivore species, both young and middle‐aged leaves were tested using laboratory bioassay.ģ. On newly emerged leaves, densities of trichomes and pellucid dots were extremely high, but they decreased rapidly with leaf age. Thirdly, the effects of ants on herbivore exclusion were investigated experimentally in the field. Secondly, herbivore species and the degree of herbivory were examined. That shift occurs gradually during leaf ageing.Ģ. First, the densities of trichomes and pellucid dots, the numbers of extrafloral nectaries (EFNs) and pearl bodies, and the number of ants on leaves of M. japonicus were examined in the field at weekly intervals. For Mallotus japonicus (Euphorbiaceae), we report a shift from direct to indirect defence against herbivory. To date, the effects of leaf age on multiple defence traits have been insufficiently elucidated. 1. Most plant species rely upon multiple lines of defence that develop or change functions with leaf age.