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Zanthoxylum rhetsa; photograph (c) Dinesh Valke, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA) CC BY-SA(c) Dinesh Valke, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA) · observed growing wild · 2024-06-26

Zanthoxylum rhetsa (Roxb.) DC.

Cape yellowwood; Indian ivy-rue

Rutaceae · Assam, Bangladesh +19

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Zanthoxylum rhetsa, photograph (c) Ashwin A, some rights reserved (CC BY)Zanthoxylum rhetsa, photograph (c) Dinesh Valke, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA)Zanthoxylum rhetsa, photograph (c) Dinesh Valke, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA)Zanthoxylum rhetsa, photograph (c) Dinesh Valke, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA)Zanthoxylum rhetsa, photograph (c) Dinesh Valke, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA)Zanthoxylum rhetsa, photograph (c) Dinesh Valke, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA) 47 photographs ›
Habitat figures
Cold floor (1 night in 100)
19.8°C
Record low 16.0 °C in 44 years, at a typical spot in the range NASA POWER
Warmest month, mean daily high
30°C
Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, Nov and Dec at the habitat CHELSA
Rain a year (median across the range)
1,578mm
8 months of 25 mm or more in the median year CHELSA
Open-sky light
32–45DLI
Lowest to highest month (DLI) CHELSA
The year in your months, northern hemisphere
  1. Jan
  2. Feb
  3. Mar
  4. Apr
  5. May
  6. Jun
  7. Jul
  8. Aug
  9. Sep
  10. Oct
  11. Nov
  12. Dec
Wet summers: the rain comes December to March, read as a summer growing season. rain rule, CHELSA
Northern hemisphere unless you set your site. The chart is in the habitat's months.

Summary

Zanthoxylum rhetsa, commonly known as Indian prickly ash, is a species of flowering plant in the family Rutaceae and occurs from India east to the Philippines and south to northern Australia. It is a deciduous shrub or tree with cone-shaped spines on the stems, pinnate leaves with between nine and twenty-three leaflets, panicles of white or yellowish, male and female flowers, followed by spherical red, brown or black follicles.

Quoted from Wikipedia, "Zanthoxylum rhetsa", CC BY-SA 4.0.

About the genus · Zanthoxylum

Zanthoxylum is a genus of about 250 species of deciduous and evergreen trees, shrubs and climbers in the family Rutaceae that are native to warm temperate and subtropical areas worldwide. It is the type genus of the tribe Zanthoxyleae in the subfamily Rutoideae. Several of the species have yellow heartwood, to which their generic name alludes. More on Wikipedia ›

Quoted from Wikipedia, "Zanthoxylum", CC BY-SA 4.0.

Cultivation

Seasons

The rain rule reads a summer growing season: 70% of the median year's rain (1,214 mm of 1,506 mm) falls in December to March, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 27.8 °C against a yearly mean of 26.8 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: June to September.

Rain

1,506 mm in the median year at the habitat, 1,214 mm of it December to March. Wettest month January at 360 mm, driest months (2 at 4 mm); 2 months under 5 mm. Across the grid cells of the range the year's total runs 1,226 mm to 2,105 mm, the 10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year. The median of the cells' own yearly totals, 1,578 mm, is the year's rain at the top of the page; the 1,506 mm here is the median year's, the twelve monthly medians added, which the rain rule reads. Habitat calendar, northern hemisphere; median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA.

Light

Open sky over the habitat: 32 to 45 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 28, the highest 90th-percentile month 47).

Warmth and air
Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at a typical spot in the range is 19.8 °C, the absolute minimum 16.0 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 36.1 °C. Monthly means: the coldest month's mean nightly low 21.8 °C in July (across the grid cells of the range 18.1 °C to 24.0 °C), the warmest month's mean daily high 30.1 °C in November and December (median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA). Cold floor: 19.8 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at a typical spot in the range (NASA POWER).

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 58 to 66% across the year (monthly means, median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

How this section is made

Each card states this species' habitat figures with their sources, and what two fixed rules read from them; nothing here says what the plant does, wants or tolerates. The rules · the terms.

Seasons. Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the grid cells of the range: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve moves 4 °C or more and the habitat lies 10° or more from the equator. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain. CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the grid cells of the range. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light. CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.

Temperature. NASA POWER daily minima and maxima over 44 years at a typical spot in the range, lapse-corrected -12 m to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the grid cells of the range. The cold floor is the 1st-percentile night named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity. CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the grid cells of the range.

Climate across the habitat

Habitat months, northern hemisphere

Habitat climate of Zanthoxylum rhetsa through the yearWarmest months January, February, March, April, November and December, mean daily high 30 °C; coldest month July, mean nightly low 21.8 °C; 1,506 mm of rain in the median year (the twelve monthly medians added). Medians across the range, from CHELSA; the extremes at the edge from NASA POWER. Habitat months, northern hemisphere.15°20°25°30°35°40°36.1° 99th-percentile day, NASA POWER16.0° lowest night in 44 years, NASA POWER°C · day and nightcold quarter0100200300400500mm rainDLI 32–45RH 58–66%JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain medians and 10th–90th percentile across 136 habitat cells, CHELSA cold quarter: the three months around the coldest month's mean nightly low extremes over 44 years at a typical spot in the range, from NASA POWER, marked at the edge, in no month DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C30 / 28–3230 / 28–3130 / 28–3230 / 27–3329 / 27–3327 / 25–3127 / 25–3127 / 25–3228 / 25–3429 / 26–3530 / 27–3430 / 28–33
Night °C26 / 24–2726 / 24–2726 / 24–2726 / 24–2725 / 22–2623 / 19–2522 / 18–2422 / 19–2424 / 22–2525 / 23–2626 / 24–2726 / 24–27
Rain mm360 / 208–441344 / 212–427272 / 202–378141 / 70–25628 / 14–1377 / 2–764 / 1–604 / 0–306 / 2–2625 / 13–7777 / 42–159238 / 140–310
DLI36 / 34–3934 / 33–3836 / 34–3936 / 33–3834 / 31–3632 / 28–3433 / 28–3538 / 32–3942 / 38–4445 / 42–4744 / 42–4739 / 36–43
RH %65 / 63–6766 / 63–6864 / 62–6761 / 57–6658 / 52–6658 / 49–6759 / 49–6660 / 52–6662 / 54–6761 / 57–6562 / 59–6663 / 61–66

Records on both sides of the equator: the 97 cells at least 10° north of it have seasons six months apart and are left out, not combined into a year no place has. These figures are across the 136 cells that remain: the 118 at least 10° south and the 18 within 10° of the equator, which stay in either way.

How this section is made
Each figure is the median across the 136 grid cells on land that hold in-range records (198 records in those cells; 7 more cells hold records but no land by the elevation layer, so those records sit at sea and the cells are left out), with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. A dash is a month one or more of those cells has no figure for in the grid (a variable CHELSA does not carry there), so no median is taken rather than one over fewer cells. Extremes and elevation were read at a typical spot in the range, cell 2030:6220 (-11.525, 131.025). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 16.0 °C, 1st-percentile night 19.8 °C, 99th-percentile day 36.1 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Across the range: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 136 distinct grid cells holding 198 of the 355 in-range records (7 further cells with records at sea, by the elevation layer, left out) on the southern side of the equator (97 cells poleward of 10° north, 118 poleward of 10° south: the two sides' seasons are not combined, and cells within 10° of the equator stay in); extremes and elevation at the typical cell 2030:6220 (its coldest month's mean nightly low nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell -11.50_131.250, lapse-corrected -12 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 11 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across the cells of the in-range records placed well enough to read one, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeAssam, Bangladesh, East Himalaya, India, Sri Lanka, Andaman Is., Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam, Borneo, Jawa, Lesser Sunda Is., Malaya, Sulawesi, Sumatera, New Guinea, Solomon Is., Northern Territory, Queensland, Western Australia · regions are the level-3 units of the World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions, as Kew's World Checklist records ranges, some under historical names such as Yugoslavia or Czechoslovakia (how).
Map marker11.693, 75.671 · in the densest population, 145 records (34% of those in range)
Kew's description“tree” · “wet tropical” · quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Evidence usedThe map marker rests on all 423 georeferenced records inside the native range; the climate across the range on the 198 of them in the land cells it reads, of 355 placed to within 10 km; the map shows only the 397 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 6695 km away. 16 records outside the WCVP native range not used. 68 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km, or with no stated accuracy (admitted only as a person's observation to three decimals), and stay on the map but off the climate.
How this section is made
The map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population inside the densest 4° block of the 423 in-range records; it decides nothing. Records outside the native range, living specimens and records marked introduced are not used; which records count.

Photographs

Zanthoxylum rhetsa, photograph 1did not loadZanthoxylum rhetsa, photograph 2did not loadZanthoxylum rhetsa, photograph 3did not loadZanthoxylum rhetsa, photograph 4did not loadZanthoxylum rhetsa, photograph 5did not loadZanthoxylum rhetsa, photograph 6did not load

Photographs: (c) Ashwin A, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Dinesh Valke, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA) (5).

Similar habitat climate The 6 nearest by mean daily high, mean nightly low and rain, month by month. How.

Diospyros maritima Diospyros maritima Malaysian persimmon Photo: CC BY, 謝麗霦Premna odorata Premna odorata Fragrant premna Photo: CC BY, 謝麗霦Santalum album Santalum album Indian sandalwood Photo: CC BY, Ravuri Krishna ChaitanyaThespesia populneoides Thespesia populneoides Pacific Rosewood Photo: CC BY, Thomas MesaglioMeiogyne cylindrocarpa Meiogyne cylindrocarpa Fingersop Photo: CC BY, Rachael KaiserGanophyllum falcatum Ganophyllum falcatum Daintree Hickory Photo: CC BY-SA, Steve Fitzgerald

Other Zanthoxylum 31 in the reference

Zanthoxylum acanthopodium Zanthoxylum acanthopodium Rutaceae Photo: CC BY, Jacy ChenZanthoxylum ailanthoides Zanthoxylum ailanthoides Alianthus-like prickly-ash Photo: CC BY, chiuluanZanthoxylum americanum Zanthoxylum americanum Toothache tree Photo: CC BY, Carter ErtelZanthoxylum armatum Zanthoxylum armatum Winged prickly-ash Photo: CC BY, jimmyZanthoxylum asiaticum Zanthoxylum asiaticum Climbing Orange Photo: CC BY, AparnaZanthoxylum avicennae Zanthoxylum avicennae Chinese Wingleaf Prickly Ash Photo: CC BY, Toby YZanthoxylum beecheyanum Zanthoxylum beecheyanum Rutaceae Photo: CC BY, M108tZanthoxylum bungeanum Zanthoxylum bungeanum Sichuan-pepper Photo: CC BY, Marco MussitaZanthoxylum capense Zanthoxylum capense Rutaceae Photo: CC BY, Shaun SwanepoelZanthoxylum caribaeum Zanthoxylum caribaeum Prickly yellow Photo: CC BY-SA, Janitzio Pech ZúñigaZanthoxylum clava-herculis Zanthoxylum clava-herculis Hercules' club Photo: CC BY, Laura GaudetteZanthoxylum coco Zanthoxylum coco Rutaceae Photo: CC0, author not stated all 32 ›

Names & registers

Also known as Fagara budrunga; Fagara parviflora; Fagara rhetsa; Lacuris illicioides; Tipalia limonella and 6 more. (GBIF Backbone)

Kew accepts as species of their own Zanthoxylum minahassae: older names in GBIF's record of this species that Kew's World Checklist accepts as other species. (WCVP, RBG Kew, file of 2026-06-04)

GBIFPOWOIPNIWFOWikidataWikipediaiNaturalist

The record

Family
Rutaceae
Described by
(Roxb.) DC.
Native to
Assam, Bangladesh, East Himalaya +18
Wild records
423 in range · 397 open

Every figure here is derived from public data by a stated rule and names its source; nothing about this species is written for its page by a person or by AI, apart from the marked, credited quotations. How →

Where this page came from built 2026-10-22
GBIF species record gbif.species answeredasked 2026-10-22
GBIF synonyms gbif.synonyms answeredasked 2026-10-22
GBIF common names gbif.vernacular answeredasked 2026-10-22names fetched 2026-10-22
WCVP native range wcvp.distribution answeredas of 2026-06-04
GBIF occurrence records gbif.occurrences answeredas of 2026-10-21GBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.hbdw64, of 2026-10-21; 2 records within 1 km of a botanic garden, herbarium or zoo left out (2 at a botanic garden or arboretum; Wikidata's list)
Habitat climate climate answeredasked 2026-10-22
Daily extremes (NASA POWER) climate.extremes answeredasked 2026-10-22NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell -11.50_131.250, lapse-corrected -12 m at 6.5 °C/km
Wikidata wikidata answeredasked 2026-10-22IPNI and POWO linked by Kew's number for Zanthoxylum rhetsa (Roxb.) DC. (the item's: IPNI none, POWO 775986-1)
Wikipedia wikipedia answeredasked 2026-10-22
iNaturalist photographs, wild inat.photos.wild answeredasked 2026-10-22from iNaturalist's open data of 2026-09-27: research-grade observations with an open-licence photograph, the 24 whose photographs iNaturalist received last (the open data holds no votes); filled 2026-10-22
iNaturalist photographs, cultivated inat.photos.cultivated not asked
GBIF media gbif.media answeredasked 2026-10-22none of the photographs on this page is credited to GBIF: those shown are other sources', and GBIF's were the same photographs or were set aside by the photograph rules
Wikimedia Commons commons answeredasked 2026-10-22
OpenAlex papers openalex not askednot yet asked for this reference; a later fill takes the papers from OpenAlex's snapshot

Every source is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, refused, failed, not been asked, or answered twice where one answer is taken (“not taken: two items answered”), and, for a source asked when this page was built, when: the figures are as the source held them that day; a source read from a file (Kew's World Checklist, a GBIF download) says "as of" the file's day instead; a row carried from an earlier build of the page names that build instead. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 35 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.

Cultifolio

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