Ailanthus altissima
Ailanthus altissima is a deciduous tree in the family Simaroubaceae. It is native to northeast and central China, and Taiwan. Unlike other members of the genus Ailanthus, it is found in temperate climates rather than the tropics.
About Ailanthus altissima in brief
Ailanthus altissima is a deciduous tree in the family Simaroubaceae. It is native to northeast and central China, and Taiwan. Unlike other members of the genus Ailanthus, it is found in temperate climates rather than the tropics. The tree grows rapidly and is capable of reaching heights of 15 m in 25 years. While the species rarely lives more than 50 years, some specimens exceed 100 years of age. Its suckering ability makes it possible for this tree to clone itself indefinitely. A. altissimo is considered a noxious weed and vigorous invasive species, and one of the worst invasive plant species in Europe and North America. All parts of the plant have a distinguishing strong odor that is often likened to peanuts, cashews, or rotting cashews. The leaves are large, odd- or even-pinnately compound on the stem, with the largest leaves found on vigorous young sprouts. The flowers are small and appear in large panicles up to 50 cm in length at the end of new shoots. The seeds borne on the female trees are 5cm in diameter and each is encapsulated in a samara that is 2 cm long and 1cm broad. The samara is large and twisted at the tips, making it spin as it falls, assisting wind dispersal. Primary wind and water dispersal characteristics are positively correlated in A altissimi since most morphological characteristics of the species are correlated with water and water. The male plants emit a foul-smelling odor while flowering to attract pollinating insects.
Male trees produce three to four times as many flowers as the females, making the male flowers more conspicuous. They appear from mid-April in the south of its range to July in the north. The female flowers are yellowish green to reddish in color, each with five petals and sepals, and the sepals are cup-shaped, lobed and united while the petals are valvate, white and hairy towards the inside. The fruit cluster may contain hundreds of seeds and each fruit cluster is 5 mm in diameter, appearing in July though August, but can persist on the tree until the next spring. The pollen is small and twisted, with a globular green disc; each being topped with an anthers. The pistil is made up of five free carpels, each containing a single ovule, and each contains a heart-shaped pistil with five stamens, each containing one ovule. It has a long tapering end while the bases have two to four teeth, each contain one or more glands at the tip. The leaflets’ upper sides are dark green in color with light green veins, while the undersides are a more whitish green. They range in size from 30 to 90 cm in length and contain 10–41 leaflets organised in pairs. The rachis is light to reddist-green with a swollen base. The leaflets are ovate-lanceolate with entire margins, somewhat asymmetric and occasionally not directly opposite to each other.
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This page is based on the article Ailanthus altissima published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 01, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
