ANACARDIACEL. 
2 SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 
genus, Cotinus Cotinus,’ a small shrubby tree, is widely distributed through southern Europe, the 
Orient, Cashmere, the western subtropical Himalayas, and northern China; and a second species very 
like the first inhabits a few isolated localities in North America.’ 
The heartwood of the Old World Cotinus is orange-colored and often handsomely marked and 
mottled, and is valued in southern Europe by cabinet-makers; it furnishes a yellow dye, and under the 
name of Young Mastic or Venetian Sumach was once an article of commercial importance. The bark 
is aromatic and astringent, and is used as a tonic and febrifuge ; and the bark and leaves, which are rich 
in tannin, are employed in curing leather.’ In the Himalayas the branches are used in making baskets 
and as tooth-sticks.* 
The Venetian Sumach or Smoke-tree, as the Old World species is commonly called, has been 
cultivated as a garden-plant® from early times for the handsome effect produced by the clusters of long 
brightly colored pedicels; and varieties have appeared with pendulous branches and with deeper 
colored pedicels than usually occur on the wild plant. 
The genus, from Kétivos, the classical name of a tree with red wood, was established by Tourne- 
fort,’ and was afterwards adopted by Linneus. 
species (Saporta, Ann. Sci. Nat. ser. 4. xvii. 278, t.13, f.1; Origine 
Paleontologique des Arbres, 299). 
8 Le Maout & Decaisne, TraitéGen. Bot. Eng. ed. 363. — Baillon, 
Hist. Pl. v. 300. — Guibourt, Hist. Drog. ed. 7, iii. 490. — Aitchi- 
1 Cotinus Cotinus, Sargent, Garden and Forest, iv. 340. 
Rhus Cotinus, Linneus, Spec. 267.— Pallas, Voyages, v. 221, t. 
10. — Jacquin, Fl. Austr. iii. 6, t. 210. — Boissier, FT. Orient. ii. 
4.— Hooker f. Fl. Brit. Ind. ii. 9.— Hemsley, Jour. Linn. Soc. 
xxiii. 146. 
Cotinus Coggygria, Seopoli, Fl. Carn. i. 220. — Engler, De Can- 
dolle Monogr. Phaner. iv. 350. 
2 Traces of Cotinus appear in the recent Eocene flora of Aix, in 
which Saporta finds the prototypic form of the existing Old World 
son, Jour. Linn. Soc. xix. 141. 
4 Brandis, Forest Fl. Brit. Ind. 118. — Gamble, Man. Indian 
Timbers, 104. 
5 Pliny, xvi. 18, 30. — Duhamel, Traite des Arbres, i. 191, t. 78. ~ 
Loudon, Arb. Brit. ii. 549, f. 223. 
6 Inst. 610, t. 380. 
