14 
SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 
ANACARDIACE. 
Rhus Metopium is found in Florida on the shores of Bay Biscayne and on the principal southern 
keys, where it is one of the commonest and most beautiful of the smaller trees. 
Bahamas, Cuba, Jamaica, and Honduras. 
It also inhabits the 
The wood of Rhus Aetopium is heavy and hard, although not strong, and contains many evenly 
distributed open ducts and thin medullary rays. It is rich dark brown streaked with red, with thick 
light brown or yellow sapwood composed of twenty-five to thirty layers of annual growth. 
The 
specific gravity of the absolutely dry wood is 0.7917, a cubic foot weighing 49.34 pounds. It checks 
badly in drying and is little used or esteemed. An emetic, purgative, and diuretic resinous gum 1s 
obtained from incisions made in the bark.! 
Rhus Metopium was probably first described by Sloane? in his catalogue of the plants of Jamaica 
published in 1696. It was first discovered in Florida*® by Dr. J. L. Blodgett.’ 
Metopium, the name used by Pliny® for an African tree, was first adopted by Browne as the 
generic name of this plant. 
1 Pharmaceutical Journal, v. 60 ; vii. 270. — Guibourt, Hist. Drog. 
ed. 7, iii. 489. This resin appears to have been formerly held in 
some esteem by the inhabitants of Jamaica, where, according to 
Browne, it was much employed in “strengthening plasters” and 
was useful in the treatment of “all swellings arising from colds, 
the weakness of the vessels, or poverty of the juices, both exter- 
(Nat. Hist. Jam. 178.) 
* Terebinthus maxima, pinnis paucioribus majoribus atque rotundi- 
oribus, fructu racemoso sparso, 167; Nat. Hist. Jam. ii. 90, t. 199. 
Toxicodendron foliis alatis fructu purpureo Pyri formi sparso, 
Catesby, Nat. Hist. Car. i. 40, t. 40. 
Metopium foliis subrotundis, pinnato-quinatis, racemis alaribus, 
Browne, Nat. Hist. Jam. 177, t. 13, f£. 3. 
It is possible that the “Poyson Tree,”? which Richard Ligon 
could not commend for her virtues, although he could for her beau- 
nally and internally.” 
ties, may have been Rhus Aetopium, although it is not reported as 
now growing on the Barbadoes. (See A true and exact History of 
the Island of Barbados, by Richard Ligon, Gent., London, 1657, 
p. 68.) 
Samuel Clarke, in A True and Faithful Account of the Four 
Chiefest Plantations of the English in America, to wit, of Virginia, 
New England, Bermudas and Barbados, published in London in 
1670, describes on page 72 a Poison Tree, which is, perhaps, Rhus 
Metopium. This, he says, “is very beautiful, almost as large as the 
Locust : Her Leaves as large and beautiful as Laurel Leaves, and 
very like them. As they cut down these Trees they have Cipers 
over their Faces: For if any of their Sap flies into their eyes, it 
makes them blind for a moneth after. Of this Timber they make 
most of the Vessels wherein they cure their Sugar.”’ 
8 Rhus Metopium is called by the inhabitants of the Florida keys 
Coral Sumach, Mountain Manchineel, Bum Wood, and Doctor Gum, 
as well as, more commonly, Poison Wood and Hog Gum. This 
last name, by which the tree was known in Jamaica in Sloane’s 
time, had its origin, he says, in the fact “that wild Hogs, when 
wounded, by natural Instinct come to this Tree, where by rubbing 
its Balsam on their Wounds they are cured.” (Nat. Hist. Jam. ii. 
91.) According to Macfadyen, however, the true Hog Gum-tree is 
Moronobea coccinea, Aubley, and not Rhus. (Fil. Jam. 225.) 
4 See i. 33. 
5 xii. 23, 49. 
EXPLANATION OF THE PLATES. 
Puate C. Ravus MeErorivum. 
NOT P oO NY 
- Diagram of a flower. 
. A flowering branch of the staminate tree, natural size. 
A flowering branch of the pistillate tree, natural size. 
A staminate flower, enlarged. 
. Vertical section of a staminate flower, enlarged. 
. A pistillate flower, enlarged. 
- Vertical section of a pistillate flower, enlarged. 
Puate CI. Ruvus MeEtTorrum. 
. A seed, enlarged. 
oF OD 
. An embryo, magnified. 
. A fruiting branch, natural size. 
. Vertical section of a fruit, enlarged. 
. Cross section of a fruit, enlarged. 
