Michigan Trees: A Handbook of the Native and Most Important Introduced Species

by Charles Herbert Otis

5. Staminate flower, enlarged.

6. Pistillate flower, enlarged.

7. Fruit, × 1.

SIMARUBACEAE

Ailanthus. Tree of Heaven

Ailanthus glandulosa Desf.

HABIT.—A handsome, rapid-growing, short-lived tree, attaining a height of 50-70 feet and a trunk diameter of 2-4 feet, with a spreading, rather loose and open crown and a coarse, blunt spray.

LEAVES.—Alternate, pinnately compound, 1-3 feet long. Leaflets 11-41 in number, 2-6 inches long and about one-third as broad; ovate-lanceolate; entire with the exception of two or more coarse, glandular teeth at the base; glabrous, dark green above, paler beneath, turning a clear yellow in autumn or falling without change; ill-scented. Petioles smooth, terete, swollen at the base.

FLOWERS.—June, when the leaves are full grown; polygamo-dioecious; small, yellow-green, borne in upright panicles 6-12 inches or more in length; calyx 5-lobed; petals 5, greenish, hairy; stamens 10. Staminate flowers ill-scented, pistillate almost free from odor.