Zanthoxylum pinnatum, commonly known as yellow wood, is a species of flowering plant of the family Rutaceae native to Lord Howe and Norfolk Islands. It is a tree with pinnate leaves, white male and female flowers arranged in groups in leaf axils, and spherical, purple follicles containing a single black seed.
Zanthoxylum pinnatum is a tree that typically grows to a height of . Its leaves are pinnate, usually with four to nine oblong to egg-shaped, slightly curved leaflets, mostly long and wide. The flowers are arranged in small to large groups in leaf axils with separate male and female flowers, the four sepals egg-shaped and long, the four or five petals white, lance-shaped and long. Flowering occurs from February to March and the fruit is a spherical, purple follicle about long containing a single black seed.[1]
Yellow wood was first formally described in 1775 by Johann Reinhold Forster and Georg Forster who gave it the name Blackburnia pinnata in their book Characteres Generum Plantarum.[2] [3] In 1917, Walter Oliver changed the name to Zanthoxylum pinnatum in Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute.[4]
Zanthoxylum pinnatum grows in forest on Lord Howe and Norfolk Islands but is not common on either island.