Common names include, but are not limited to : Tree of heaven, Ailanthus, varnish tree, copal tree, stinking sumac, Chinese sumac, paradise tree, Ailante glanduleux, Ailante, Faux vernis du Japon, Frêne puant, Vernis de Chine, 臭椿, chòuchūn, Götterbaum, ailanto, árbol del cielo, árbol de los dioses, malhuele, falso zumaque (…)
“A. altissima, native to China, is a short to medium-size deciduous tree valued chiefly for timber, shade and urban amenity plantings. It is tolerant of drought, poor soils and pollution and so can be grown in difficult urban locations, although it is considered as a potentially weedy species in the USA (Shah, 1997). It is an aggressive pioneer species, characterized by rapid juvenile growth and prolific seed production and has a very high ability to coppice once established. It requires well-aerated and moist soils to produce good, single-stemmed trees.”
Source : CABI Digital Library
China North-Central, China South-Central, China Southeast, Inner Mongolia, Manchuria, Taiwan, Tibet, Xinjiang
Afghanistan, Alabama, Albania, Algeria, Argentina Northeast, Argentina Northwest, Arizona, Arkansas, Assam, Austria, Azores, Belgium, Bulgaria, California, Canary Is., Cape Provinces, Chile Central, Colorado, Connecticut, Corse, Cyprus, Czechoslovakia, Delaware, District of Columbia, East Aegean Is., Florida, France, Free State, Georgia, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Hawaii, Hungary, Idaho, Illinois, India, Indiana, Iowa, Iran, Iraq, Italy, Japan, Kansas, Kentucky, Korea, Kriti, Krym, KwaZulu-Natal, Lebanon-Syria, Lesotho, Libya, Louisiana, Madeira, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mexico Northeast, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Morocco, Nansei-shoto, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, New Zealand North, New Zealand South, North Carolina, Northern Provinces, Ohio, Oklahoma, Ontario, Oregon, Pakistan, Palestine, Pennsylvania, Poland, Portugal, Québec, Rhode I., Romania, Sardegna, Sicilia, South Carolina, Spain, Switzerland, Tadzhikistan, Tennessee, Texas, Transcaucasus, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkey-in-Europe, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uruguay, Utah, Uzbekistan, Vermont, Vietnam, Virginia, Washington, West Himalaya, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Yugoslavia
Source : Plants of the World Online (POWO), Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
1743
Pierre Nicolas Le Chéron d’Incarville sends seeds from Beijing, China, to Bernard de Jussieu, some of which will be planted the same year in France.¹
1751
Seeds are sent to Philip Miller, the general director of the Botanical Gardens of Chelsea, and to Philip C. Webb, the owner of an exotic plants garden in Busbridge, UK.²
1782
A specimen is observed in Utrecht, NL by Jakob Friedrich Ehrhart.²
1784
Seeds are sent to William Hamilton, a gardener in Philadelphia.²
1840
Ailanthus altissima is commercially available in most plant nurseries in the United States.³
1845
Recorded in Australia, at Camden Park, New South Wales in and in the Melbourne, Hobart and Adelaide Botanic Gardens in the 1850s.⁴
1860’s
Introduced to Australia via Chinese miners during the Australian Gold Rush.⁴
1890’s
Ailanthus altissima is introduced in the United States West Coast during the Californian Gold Rush, presumably by Chinese miners.⁵
Post-WW2
Ailanthus altissima is considered as naturalised in most European cities, due to its capacity to rapidly grow in ruin-landscapes.⁶
2019
Ailanthus altissima is inscribed in the European Union list of Invasive Alien Species, making it illegal to import, cultivate, transport, commercialise, or plant within the EU.
1. Dumas, Y., « L’ailante glanduleux – Histoire à rebondissement d’un arbre chinois », La Garance Voyageuse, September 2017
2. Shiu-ying Hu, « Ailanthus altissima », Arnoldia, vol. 39, no 2, march 1979
3. Behula Shah, « The Checkered Career of Ailanthus altissima », Arnoldia, vol. 57, no 3, summer 1997
4. Australian Weeds Committee, « Weed Identification – Tree-of-heaven », Weed Identification & Information, National Weeds Strategy
5. Marc C. Hoshovsky, « Element Stewardship Abstract for Ailanthus altissima », Arlington, Virginia, The Nature Conservancy, 1988
6. Ingo Kowarik, Biologische Invasionen : Neophyten und Neozoen in Mitteleuropa, Stuttgart, Verlag Eugen Ulmer, 2003
