606 TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



those at the ends of the leaf and 2'-5' long and I'-l^' wide, turning in the autumn 

 before falling bright scarlet with shades of crimson, purple, and orange. Flo"wers 

 opening gradually and in succession in early summer, the pistillate a week or ten 

 days later than the staminate, on slender pedicels from the axils of small acute 

 pubescent bracts, in dense panicles, with pubescent stems and branchlets and acumi- 

 nate bracts ^' to nearly 2' long and deciduous with the opening of the flowers; panicle 

 of the staminate flowers 8'-12' long and 5'-6' broad, with wide-spreading branches and 

 nearly one third larger than the more compact panicle of the pistillate plant; calyx- 

 lobes acute, covered on the outer surface with long slender hairs, much shorter than 

 the petals in the staminate flower, and almost as long in the pistillate flower; petals 

 of the staminate flower yellow-green sometimes tinged with red, strap-shaped, 

 rounded at the apex, becoming reflexed above the middle at matiu-ity; petals of the 

 pistillate flower green, narrow and acuminate, with a thickened and slightly hooded 

 apex, remaining erect; disk bright red and conspicuous; stamens slightly exserted, 

 with slender filaments and large bright orange-colored anthers; ovary ovoid and 

 pubescent, the 3 short styles slightly connate at the base, with large capitate stig- 

 mas, in the staminate flower glabrous, much smaller, unusually rudimentary. Fruit 

 fully grown and colored in August and ripening late in the autumn in dense pani- 

 cles 6'-8' long and 2'-3' wide, depressed-globular, with a thin outer covering clothed 

 vritli long acrid crimson hairs and a small pale brown bony stone; seed slightly 

 reniform, orange-brown. 



A tree, occasionally 35-40 high, with copious white viscid juice turning black on 

 exposure, a slender often slightly inclining trunk occasionally 12'-14' in diameter, 

 stout upright often contorted branches forming a low flat open head, and thick branch- 

 lets covered with long soft brown hairs gathered also in tufts in the axils of the 

 leaves, becoming glabrous after their third or fourth year, and in their second season 

 marked by large narrow leaf-scars and by small orange-colored lenticels enlarging 

 vertically and persistent for several years; more frequently a tall shrub, spreading 

 by underground shoots into broad thickets. Winter-buds conical, thickly coated 

 with long silky pale brown hairs, about ^' long. Bark of the trunk thin, dark 

 brown, generally smooth, and occasionally separating into small square scales. "Wood 

 light, brittle, soft, coarse-grained, orange-colored, streaked with green, with thick 

 nearly white sap wood. From the young shoots pipes are made for drawing the sap 

 of the Sugar Maple. The bark, especially that of the roots, and the leaves are rich in 

 tannin. 



Distribution. Usually on uplands in good soil, or less commonly on sterile grav- 

 elly banks and on the borders of streams and swamps; New Brunswick, through the 

 valley of the St. Lawrence River to southern Ontario and Minnesota, and southward 

 through the northern states and along the Alleghany Mountains to northern Georgia 

 and to central Alabama and Mississippi; more abundant on the Atlantic seaboard 

 than in the region west of the Appalachian Mountains. 



Occasionally cultivated as an ornamental plant in the United States, and very 

 commonly in central and northern Europe. 



2. Rhus copallina, L. Sumach. 



Leaves 6'-8' long, with slender pubescent petioles and rachises more or less 

 broadly wing-margined between the leaflets, the wings increasing in width toward 

 the apex of the leaf, and 9-21 oblong or ovate-lanceolate leaflets entire or remotely 

 serrate above the middle, sharp-pointed or rarely emarginate at the apex, acute or 



