Lännenaralia

Aralia spinosa L. Sp. PI. 273. 1753
Angelica spinosa Shecut, Fl. Car. 167. 1806.
Aralia Leroana K. Koch, Wochenschr. Gartn. 7: 369. 1864.
Aralia spinosa f. subinermis Moldenke, Castanea 9: 54. 1944.
Tree, up to 12 m. high or more, the trunk up to 25 cm. in diameter, with the branches and branchlets armed with stout straight or incurved prickles; leaves ample, bipinnate, the petiole up to 30 cm. long or more, often armed, the rachis swollen at the nodes, often armed, the pinnae 7-13-foliolate, short-petiolulate, often subtended by a single leaflet, the leaflets papyraceous, ovate, up to 15 cm. long and 9 cm. broad but usually much smaller, short-stalked (the terminal one long-stalked), obtuse to subcordate at the base, acute to acuminate at the apex, dentate to crenate at the margins, sometimes spinose or slightly pilose on the principal nerves, paler beneath ; inflorescence often longer than the leaves, the peduncle and rachis stout, sometimes armed or puberulent, the secondary branches and pedicels usually pale-pilose, the bracts and bractlets lanceolate; flowers 5-merous, 15-40 per umbel, the pedicels usually 4—12 mm. long; calyx obconic, 1-1.5 mm. long, the lobes deltoid, subacute; petals 2-3 mm. long; filaments up to 4 mm. long, the anthers about 2 mm. long; styles connate at the base, free above; fruit 4-6 mm. in diameter, black.
Type locality: Virginia.
Distribution: Delaware, central Pennsylvania, Illinois, Missouri, and Oklahoma, southward to Florida and eastern Texas; cultivated or escaped northward to New York and Connecticut.