A new cultivar of castor aralia (Kalopanax septemlobus Koidz) was developed via pure line selection at Korea Forest Research Institute. Among 200 plants, one clone was selected as it had improved characteristics for cultivation in 2002. Tested major characters were thorn appearance, size of lateral bud, the number of lateral bud, size of leaf and strength of shoot tissue. In 2006, the first Korean cultivar of castro aralia, Cheongsan was finally selected based on the performance of those characters for three years and registered the denomination of a new variety and certificated for variety production and merchandising in 2007. The new castor aralia cultivar, Cheongsan showed higher values for the most tested characters than control trees. Leaf length, leaf width and diameter of the bud base of Cheongsan were 17.22, 13.68 and 1.09 cm, respectively. Cheongsan also had higher number of shoots because it had twice as many lateral buds than control trees. Especially, Cheongsan has fewer thorns than control trees and its petiole color is light green. In addition, Cheongsan has shoot tissue which is advantageous in the use of shoot for a specialty vegetable.

• Sea Hyun Kim