XXXIV. THE FRAGRANT SUMACH. 507 



and fertile flowers are on different plants, in panicles in the 

 angle of the leaves or of the scales near the base of the recent 

 shoots. The partial flower-stalks are very short ; the calyx of 

 the fertile flowers of 5 pointed, greenish-white segments, clasp- 

 ing the corolla of 5 whitish-yellow, veined, flat or reflexed, 

 rounded or pointed segments ; stamens 5, short, anthers orange, 

 large, opening laterally ; ovary ovate, with 1 large terminal and 

 2 smaller, lateral stigmas. The sterile flowers have a perianth 

 of 10 pieces, the 2 or 3 outer ones short, pointed, green ; the 

 next 2 or 3, wider and longer, resembling the 5 interior, which 

 are ovate, white veined with purple ; stamens 5, with flat an- 

 thers. 



This plant, as its name indicates, is poisonous in the same 

 manner as the Poison Sumach, but in an inferior degree. As is 

 the case with all vegetable poisons, different constitutions are 

 differently affected by it. All persons, probably, might be poi- 

 soned by it. My brother, W. S. Emerson, a physician, who had 

 always handled it with impunity, wishing to ascertain this in his 

 own case, scarified his arm and applied the expressed juice to 

 the wounds. Within twenty-four hours, the arm began to swell 

 and be painful, and in a few days an ulcer was produced on the 

 scarified portion, painful, of long continuance and very difficult 

 to heal, with the remedies, acetate of lead and corrosive subli- 

 mate, recommended in Dr. Bigelow's excellent account of the 

 plant in his Medical Botany. 



The juice of this plant is yellowish and milky, becoming 

 black after a short exposure to the air. It has been used as 

 marking ink, and, on linen, is indelible. 



Sp. 6. The Fragrant Sumach. R. aromatica. Aiton. 



This plant has quite a different aspect from any of the sumachs 

 previously described. I have not found it in the eastern part of 

 the State ; but Prof. Dewey tells me it grows near Williams 

 College. It has long been cultivated at the Botanic Garden, 

 Cambridge, where it is a straggling bush, four or five feet 

 high, with a brown, smoothish stem, and somewhat numerous 

 branches. 



The leaves are ternate on a short petiole ; leaflets sessile, 



