ARALIA, a genus of aromatic herbs, shrubs and small trees of the aralia or ginseng family (Araliaceae), containing about 35 species, found in North America, Asia, Malaya and Australia. Various forms are cultivated for ornamental foliage and some possess medicinal properties. The stems and leaf stalks are often spiny or bristly; the leaves are usually much divided into toothed leaflets; and the small flowers, which are borne in panicled umbels, are sometimes exceedingly numerous and showy. Among the best known North American members of the genus are the American spikenard (A. racemosa), which grows from aft. to 6ft. high in rich woods from New Brunswick to South Dakota and south to Georgia and Missouri; the Virginian sarsaparilla (A. nudicaulis), a foot in height, found in woods from Newfoundland to British Columbia, south to North Carolina and Colorado ; the bristly sar saparilla (A. hispida), about eft. high, native to sandy clearings from Newfoundland to Hudson bay and southward to North Carolina and Indiana ; the Elk clover (A. calif ornica), a robust form, sometimes 'oft. high, found along mountain streams in California and Oregon; and the angelica tree, Hercules' club or devil's walking-stick (A. spinosa), a spiny shrub or small tree, sometimes 40f t. high, native to low grounds from New York to Indiana and southward to Florida and Texas, frequently planted for ornament and sometimes escaping to roadsides and thickets. Tne Chinese angelica tree (A. sinensis and japonica) is the east Asian counterpart of the North American A. spinosa, but is less prickly and has more showy flowers. Many hardy varieties of the Chinese angelica tree are in cultivation. Numerous greenhouse plants called aralias are species of Polyscias and related genera of the aralia family. Ginseng (q.v.) is obtained from Panax Ginseng, native to China, a plant closely related to the aralias.