Zanthoxylum ovalifolium, commonly known as thorny yellowwood, oval-leaf yellow wood or little yellowwood, is a species of flowering plant in the family Rutaceae. It is a shrub or tree usually with trifoliate leaves, white, male and female flowers arranged in panicles in leaf axils or on the ends of branchlets and red, purple or brown follicles.

Description
Zanthoxylum ovalifolium is a shrub or tree that typically grows to a height of  and often has prickles on its branchlets and thick, conical spines on its older stems. It has trifoliate leaves  long, often with simple leaves on the same twig. The leaflets are elliptical to egg-shaped with the lower end towards the base,  long,  wide and sessile, the end leaflet sometimes on a petiolule up to  long. The flowers are arranged in leaf axils, on the ends of branchlets, or both, in panicles up to  long, each flower on a pedicel  long. The four sepals are  long and the four petals white and about  long. Male flowers have four stamens  long with a sterile, narrow oval carpel about  high. Female flowers have a single carpel  long, and sometimes rudimentary stamens. Flowering occurs in summer and the fruit is a spherical red, purple or brown follicle  wide.

Taxonomy
Zanthoxylum ovalifolium was first formally described in 1839 by Robert Wight in his book, Illustrations of Indian Botany, from specimens collected in the "Shevagerry hills in flower, and fruit in August and September".

Distribution and habitat
Thorny yellowwood is a widespread species, found from India, through southeast Asia, Malesia, New Guinea, and Queensland. In Australia it occurs between the Daintree River and Ravenshoe, growing in rainforest at altitudes between .

Uses

Timber
Thorny yellowwood is a timber tree valued for its hard, yellowish-white, close-grained wood.

Medicinal uses
The fruits of this species are reported to have "astringent, stimulative, and digestive properties".

Essential oils
The fruits yield the essential oils myrcene and safrole.

References

ovalifolium
Plants described in 1839
Taxa named by Robert Wight
Flora of Queensland
Flora of China
Flora of tropical Asia