NIRVANA OR NOT IN THE NORTH WOODS

If there's one shrub in a favorite ruffed grouse covert that will dampen the excitement of a crisp, fall hunt, it's prickly ash.

- By Mike Lannoo

Prickly ash grows in dense, spikey clones impenetrable to birds of prey and mammals as large as humans. Each clone can measure 15 or more feet in diameter and 10 or more feet high and constitutes a true no-go zone in the mixed coniferous/deciduous woods that constitute home to the “King of Game Birds.” What this means, of course, is that at least once a season a north woods hunter will drop a bird in a prickly ash clone, which will most certainly extract its ounce (or more) of blood.

Native to the upper Midwest and New England, prickly ash (Zanthoxylum americanum) is not an ash at all, but a citrus. Cut a stem or crush a leaf, and it smells like an orange. The genus derives its name from its yellow/orange (xantho) wood (xylem). One of its closest relatives is the culinary world’s Sichuan pepper (