• Scientific Name: Gleditsia japonica Miq.
• Ref: Ann. Mus. Bot. Lugduno-Batavi 3:54. 1867
• Synonyms: Caesalpiniodes japonicum (Miq.) Kuntze; Gleditsia coccinea Koehne; G. koraiensis Nakai
• English Common Name: Japanese honey locust
• Chinese Common Name: 山皂荚 shān∙zàojiá, 山皂角 shān∙zàojiǎo, 皂荚树 zàojiá∙shù, 皂角树 zàojiǎo∙shù
• Japanese Common Name: サイカチ [皁莢/梍] saikachi
• Family: Fabaceae
• Genus: Gleditsia
• Distribution: Sunny slopes, valleys, streamsides, near roads, forests; 100-2500 m. Anhui, Guizhou, Hebei, Henan, Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Liaoning, Shandong, Yunnan, Zhejiang [Japan, Korea].

Trees or small trees, to 25 m tall. Branchlets purplish brown or grayish green when bark falls off, slightly ribbed, with scattered whitish lenticels, smooth and glabrous. Spines pur­plish brown to brownish black, slightly flat, robust, 2-15.5 cm, often branched. Leaves pinnate or bipinnate (pinnae 2-6 pairs), 11-25 cm; petiolules very short; leaflets 3-10 pairs, adaxially sometimes shiny, ovate-oblong or ovate-lanceolate to oblong, 2-7(-9) × 1-3(-4) cm (leaflets of bipinnate leaves obviously smaller), papery to thickly papery, abaxially puberulent on mid­vein and at base, glabrescent when old, adaxially puberulent or glabrous, slightly scabrous, reticulate veinlets obscure, base broadly cuneate or rounded, slightly oblique, margin entire or repand-crenate, apex rounded, sometimes emarginate. Flowers yellowish green, in axillary or terminal, puberulent spikes. Male inflorescence 8-20 cm; female inflorescence 5-16 cm. Male flowers: 5-6 mm in diam.; receptacle deep brown, ca. 1.5 mm, outside densely brown puberulent; sepals 3 or 4, triangular-lanceolate, ca. 2 mm, both surfaces pubescent; petals 4, elliptic, ca. 2 mm, pubescent; stamens 6-8(or 9). Female flowers: 5-8(-9) mm in diam.; receptacle ca. 2 mm; sepals and petals 4 or 5, similar to those of male flowers in shape, ca. 3 mm, both surfaces densely pubescent; staminodes 4-8; ovary glabrous; ovules numerous; style short, incurved; stigma inflated, 2-lobed. Legume brown or brownish black, compressed, strap-shaped, 20-54 × 2-7 cm, irregularly twisted or falcate, apex with beak 5-15 mm; stipe 1.5-3.5(-5) cm; valves leathery, often bullate, glabrous or velutinous, shiny. Seeds numerous, deep brown, elliptic, 9-10 × 5-7 mm, smooth. 2n = 28*. (Flora of China)