Zanthoxylum ailanthoides, also called ailanthus-like prickly ash, (, lit. "Ailanthus-leaved pepper",; the name is obviously adaptation of latin ailanthoides "ailanthus-like" , lit. "Yue pepper",, p.503 食茱萸 shi zhu yu,given in :zh:花椒, retrieved from (2011.12.20 11:55) version, 「澳名に食茱萸を当てる。からすのさんしょう..カラスザンセウ」(This dictionary states 食茱萸 as Cantonese for karasu-zansho), p.462 gives 食菜萸 but probably mistype since this is not pronounced lit. "edible shān zhū yú"; , からすのさんしょう karasu-zanshō, karasu-no-sanshō, lit. "crow prickly ash") is an Asiatic plant of the prickly-ash genus Zanthoxylum, natively occurring in forest-covered parts of southeastern China, Taiwan, Southeast Asia, and Japan from Honshu southward.(hamlet plants of Southern Kyushu) The piquant fruit serves as a local substitute for the ordinary red-pepper in China before the Columbian exchange. In Taiwan, the young leaves are used in cuisines.
Though some refer to the species as "Japanese prickly-ash", that name is confusing since it is sometimes applied to the sanshō which is Z. piperitum. Z. ailanthoides is not normally exploited for human consumption in Japan, except by the prehistoric people from the Jōmon period.Yasushi Kosugi (小杉康) et al.『大地と森の中で: 縄文時代の古生態系』同成社, 2009, p.145 It is foraged in the wild by the Japanese macaque.
A regional nickname is tara,, p.175 and in fact, its young shoots are often mistaken for the true tara (Aralia elata) by gatherers of wild plants.p.64 The Latin name ailanthoides of the species comes from its leaves resembling those of the Ailanthus.
Like other genera of plants in the rue family, it serves as the host food plant for the larvae of several Continental Asian swallowtail butterfly species, such as Papilio bianor, Papilio helenus, Papilio protenor, and Papilio xuthus.
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