{"id":34090,"date":"2025-11-21T10:45:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T09:45:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/?p=34090"},"modified":"2025-11-21T13:11:04","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T12:11:04","slug":"sansho-fruiting-for-the-first-time-in-malvik","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/?p=34090","title":{"rendered":"Sansho fruiting for the first time in Malvik"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>Zanthoxylum<\/em> is a genus of some 250 species of deciduous and evergreen trees, shrubs and climbers in the citrus family, <em>Rutaceae<\/em><br>To my great surprise,&nbsp; I discovered that a plant I received from my friend Bo Blomkvist in Sweden as <em>Zanthoxylum schinifolium<\/em> and planted in July 2020 had numerous fruits on it. However, the taste was very similar to Japanese pepper, <em>Zanthoxylum piperitum, <\/em>and I believe it is this species I have as it has spines that grow in pairs (picture) whereas <em>schinifolium<\/em> has solitary spines. It is known as sansh\u014d (\u5c71\u6912) in Japan and chopi (\ucd08\ud53c) in Korea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-34090 gallery-columns-1 gallery-size-full'><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/?attachment_id=34092'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"600\" height=\"592\" src=\"http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/PA311423.jpg\" class=\"attachment-full size-full\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/PA311423.jpg 600w, http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/PA311423-300x296.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/?attachment_id=34096'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1000\" height=\"794\" src=\"http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/PB091645.jpg\" class=\"attachment-full size-full\" alt=\"\" aria-describedby=\"gallery-1-34096\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/PB091645.jpg 1000w, http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/PB091645-300x238.jpg 300w, http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/PB091645-768x610.jpg 768w, http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/PB091645-640x508.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<figcaption class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-34096'>\n\t\t\t\tPairs of thorns separates Zanthoxylum piperitum from Z. schinifolium\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/?attachment_id=34094'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" src=\"http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/PA311428.jpg\" class=\"attachment-full size-full\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/PA311428.jpg 800w, http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/PA311428-300x225.jpg 300w, http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/PA311428-768x576.jpg 768w, http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/PA311428-640x480.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/?attachment_id=34093'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" src=\"http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/PA311426.jpg\" class=\"attachment-full size-full\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/PA311426.jpg 800w, http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/PA311426-300x225.jpg 300w, http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/PA311426-768x576.jpg 768w, http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/PA311426-640x480.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/?attachment_id=34095'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" src=\"http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/PB071593.jpg\" class=\"attachment-full size-full\" alt=\"\" aria-describedby=\"gallery-1-34095\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/PB071593.jpg 800w, http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/PB071593-300x225.jpg 300w, http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/PB071593-768x576.jpg 768w, http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/PB071593-640x480.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<figcaption class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-34095'>\n\t\t\t\tSowing seed\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<p>I have tried to grow <em>Z. piperitum<\/em>, including the thornless variety <em>inerme<\/em>, several times in the past (always from seed as there was no source of plants in Norway) but I have only once experienced a plant reaching the flowering stage for a couple of years, but no fruits developed, subsequently dying. I&#8217;ve also tried other species such as <em>Zanthoxylum americanum<\/em> and <em>Z. simulans,<\/em> but they also died in the winter. This plant is the only surviving one in my garden. I was surprised to find fruits as sources I\u2019d read say that <em>Z. piperitum<\/em> is reliably dioecious, i.e, it has separate male and female plants. On the other hand, some species such as <em>Z. schinifolium<\/em> are sometimes monoecious or hermaphroditic. I note though that our friends at the Balkan Ecology Project have also found it to be hermaphroditic<em>; see <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.balkep.org\/zanthoxylum-piperitum.html\">https:\/\/www.balkep.org\/zanthoxylum-piperitum.html<\/a><br><br>I\u2019ve now sown the seed (they need stratifying and shouldn&#8217;t dry out before sowing) and will also try to propagate by cuttings later in the winter, the combination of an apparently hardier monoecious form of this great spice is worth preserving. I ate sansho frequently during my study tour to Japan back in 2016 and even visited a farm producing the leaves of this plant. I&#8217;ve blogged separately about this at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/?p=34098\">https:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/?p=34098 <\/a>including much more about the many uses of Japanese pepper!<\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Zanthoxylum is a genus of some 250 species of deciduous and evergreen trees, shrubs and climbers in the citrus family, RutaceaeTo my great surprise,&nbsp; I discovered that a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[297],"tags":[5292,5291,1150,1151],"class_list":["post-34090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spice","tag-first-harvest","tag-rutaceae","tag-sansho","tag-zanthoxylum-piperitum"],"views":2940,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34090"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34090\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34178,"href":"http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34090\/revisions\/34178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.edimentals.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}