ANACARDIACE^ 603 



l^'-2' long at maturity and covered with short not very abundant rather inconspic- 

 uous pale purple or brown hairs; seed kidney-shaped, pale brown, about -^q' long. 



A tree, 2o-3o high, with a straight trunk occasionally 12'-14' in diameter, usually 

 dividing 12-l'i from the ground into several erect stems separating into wide- 

 spreading often slightly pendulous branches, and slender branchlets purple at first, 

 soon becoming green, brigfit red-brown and covered with small white lenticels and 

 marked by large prominent leaf -scars during their first winter, and dark orange- 

 colored in their second year. Winter-buds l' long and covered with thin dark red- 

 brown scales. Bark of the trunk 1' thick, light gray, furrowed and broken on the 

 surface into thin oblong scales. Wood light, soft, rather coarse-grained, bright clear 

 rich orange color, with thin nearly white sapwood; largely used locally for fence- 

 posts and very durable in contact with the soil; yielding a clear orange-colored dye. 



Distribution. Southern slopes of the Cumberland Mountains near Huntsville, 

 Alabama, on the Cheat Mountains in eastern Tennessee, banks of Grand River, 

 Indian Territory, valley of the Medina River, western Texas, and southwestern Mis- 

 souri; nowhere common and only in small isolated groves or thickets scattered along 

 the sides of rocky ravines or dry slopes. 



Occasionally cultivated in the eastern United States and hardy as far north as 

 eastern Massachusetts, and rarely in Europe. 



2. METOPIUM, P. Br. 



Trees or shrubs, with naked buds, fleshy roots, and milky exceedingly caustic juice. 

 Leaves unequally pinnate, persistent; leaflets coriaceous, lustrous, long-petiolulate. 

 Flowers dioecious, yellow-green, on short stout pedicels, in narrow erect axillary 

 clusters at the ends of the branches, with minute acute deciduous bracts and bract- 

 lets, the males and females on different trees; calyx-lobes semiorbicular, about half as 

 long as the ovate obtuse petals; stamens 5, inserted under the margin of the disk; 

 filaments shorter than the anthers, minute and rudimentary in the pistillate flower; 

 ovary ovate, sessile, minute in the staminate flower; style terminal, short, undivided; 

 stigma 3-lobed. Fruit ovate, compressed, smooth and glabrous, crowned with the 

 remnants of the style; outer coat thick and resinous; stone crustaceous. Seed nearly 

 quadrangular, compressed; seed-coat smooth, dark brown and opaque, the broad 

 funicle covering its margin. 



Metopium with two species is confined to southern Florida and the West Indies. 



The generic name, from ^nos, was the classical name of an African tree now 

 unknown. 



1. Metopium Metopium, Small. Poison Wood. Hog Gum. 



(Rhus Metopium, Silva N. Am. iii. 13.) 



Leaves clustered near the ends of the branches, 9'-10' long, with stout petioles 

 swollen and enlarged at the base, and 5-7 leaflets, or often 3-foliolate, unfolding in 

 March and persistent until the following spring; leaflets ovate, rounded or usually 

 contracted toward the acute or sometimes slightly emarginate apex, rounded or some- 

 times cordate or wedge-shaped at the base, 3'-4' long, 2'-3' broad, with thickened 

 slightly revolute margins, prominent midribs, primary veins spreading at right 

 angles, numerous reticulate veinlets, and stout petiolules V-1' long? that of the ter- 

 minal leaflet often twice as long as the others. Flowers about ^' in diameter, in 

 clusters as long or rather longer than the leaves; petals yellow-green, marked on the 



