SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 
COTINUS. 
FLOWERS regular, dicecious by abortion or rarely polygamo-diccious ; calyx 5-lobed, 
the lobes imbricated in estivation; petals 5, imbricated in estivation; ovary 1-celled, 
obovate, compressed ; ovule solitary, suspended from the base of the cell. Fruit an 
oblong oblique compressed drupe. Leaves simple. Abortive pedicels long and tomen- 
tose at maturity. 
Cotinus, Linnzus, G'en. 84. — Adanson, Fam. Pl. ii. 345. (in part). — Bentham & Hooker, Gen. i. 418 (in part). — 
Rhus, Linnzus, Gen. ed. 5,129 (in part). — A. L. de Jussieu, Marchand, Rev. Anacard. 179 (in part). — Baillon, Hist. 
Gen. 369 (in part). — Endlicher, Gen. 1130 (in part). — Pl. v. 321 (in part). 
Meisner, Gen. 74 (in part). — Gray, Gen. Ill. ii. 157 
Small trees or shrubs, with scaly bark, stout terete pithy branches, minute acuminate winter-buds, 
fleshy roots, and strong-smelling resinous juice.’ Leaves alternate, petiolate, oval, obovate-oblong or 
nearly orbicular, glabrous or more or less pilose-pubescent, destitute of stipules, deciduous. Flowers 
minute, greenish yellow, in ample loose terminal or lateral pyramidal or thyrsoidal panicles, the branches 
from the axils of linear acute or spatulate deciduous bracts. Pedicels slender, accrescent after the 
flowering period, mostly abortive and then conspicuously tomentose-villose at maturity. Calyx-lobes 
ovate, lanceolate, obtuse, persistent. Disk fleshy, annular, slightly five-lobed, coherent with the base 
of the calyx, and surrounding the base of the ovary. Petals oblong, acute, twice as long as the calyx, 
inserted under the free margin of the disk opposite its lobes, deciduous. Stamens five, inserted under 
the margin of the disk, alternate with and shorter than the petals ; filaments filiform ; anthers broadly 
ovate, attached on the back below the middle, two-celled, the cells opening longitudinally ; usually 
rudimentary or abortive in the pistillate flower. Ovary sessile, obovate ; rudimentary in the pistillate 
flower. Styles three, short and spreading from the lateral apex of the ovary ; stigmas large, terminal, 
obtuse; ovule anatropous, resupinate-suspended from the apex of a long slender funicle rising from 
the base of the cell; the micropyle superior. Fruit glabrous, conspicuously reticulate-veined, bearing 
on the side near the middle the remnants of the persistent styles; sarcocarp thin and dry, the endocarp 
thick and bony. Seed destitute of albumen, amphitropous; testa thin, membranaceous. Embryo filling 
the seed; cotyledons oval, flat, accumbent ; radicle short, incurved towards the hilum, descending by 
the unequal development of the fruit. 
The genus Cotinus occurs in the three continents of the northern hemisphere. The type of the 
1 The juice of the Old World species of Cotinus is said by properties found in some American species of Rhus. (Des Plantes 
Cornevin to possess, although in a slighter degree, the irritating  Vénéneuses, 278.) 
