16 SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. ANACARDIACES. 
pubescent stems and branches and acuminate bracts half an inch to nearly an inch long, or occasionally 
twice that length on the female plant, and deciduous with the opening of the flowers. The panicle of 
sterile flowers is from eight to twelve inches in length and five or six inches in breadth, with wide- 
spreading branches, and is nearly a third larger than the more compact inflorescence of the fertile 
plant. The flowers are borne on slender pedicels produced from the axils of small acute pubescent 
bractlets. The calyx-lobes are acute and are covered on the outer surface with long slender hairs ; in 
the male flower they are much shorter than the petals, and in the female flower almost as long. The 
petals of the staminate flower are yellow-green sometimes tinged with red, strap-shaped, rounded at the 
apex and reflexed above the middle at maturity, while those of the pistillate flower are green, narrower 
and acuminate with a thickened slightly hooded apex, and remain erect or nearly so. The disk is 
bright red and conspicuous, especially in the staminate flower. The stamens in the sterile flower are 
slightly exserted, with slender filaments and large bright orange-colored anthers; in the fertile flower 
they are much shorter, with minute rudimentary anthers. The ovary is ovoid and pubescent, and is 
crowned by three short spreading styles slightly connate at the base with large capitate stigmas; in the 
staminate flower it is glabrous, much smaller, and usually rudimentary. The sterile trees flower from 
the middle to the end of June and the fertile trees a week or ten days later, the flowers of both 
opening gradually and in succession. The fruit is borne in dense panicles six to eight inches long and 
two to three inches broad. It is depressed-globular, with a thin outer covering clothed with long acrid 
crimson hairs, and a small pale brown bony stone. The seed is slightly reniform, with an orange-brown 
smooth testa. The fruit, fully grown and colored in August, does not ripen until October; the panicles 
remaining on the branches and retaining their color until the new leaves appear the following spring.’ 
Rhus typhina grows in New Brunswick and extends westward through the valley of the St. 
Lawrence 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. It is a common 
plant in nearly every part of this region, although it is more generally distributed on the Atlantic 
seaboard than in the region west of the Alleghany Mountains. It usually grows on uplands in good 
soil, spreading into broad thickets to the exclusion of other plants, but is sometimes found on sterile 
gravelly banks and near the borders of streams and swamps. 
The wood of Rhus typhina is light, brittle, soft, and coarse-grained, with a satiny surface that 
takes a good polish. Its layers of annual growth are clearly defined by four to six rows of large open 
ducts ; it contains numerous obscure medullary rays and is orange-color streaked with green, with thick 
nearly white sapwood. It has been employed in inlaying furniture made of other woods, but probably 
is now little used. The specific gravity of the absolutely dry wood is 0.4357, a cubic foot weighing 
27.15 pounds. From the young shoots of this tree pipes are made for drawing the sap of the Sugar 
Maple. 
from the astringent and refrigerant fruit is occasionally employed as a gargle.? 
The bark, especially of the root, as well as the leaves, is rich in tannin.? An infusion made 
fthus typhina was known to Europeans in the beginning of the seventeenth century. It was first 
described by Caspar Bauhin * in 1623, and was cultivated in England by John Parkinson® as early as 
open until after the anthers of many of the early staminate flowers which cover the surface, and is due to malic acid and bimalate 
of calcium. (Kalm, Zravels, English ed. i. 76.— U. S. Dispens. 
ed. 14, 772. — Guibourt, Hist. Drog. ed. 7, iii. 488.) 
4 Rhus Virginianum, Pinazx, 521.— Ray, Hist. Pl. ii. 1591. — 
have shed their pollen, and fertilization is dependent on the pollen 
produced by the later flowers. Bees visit the flowers of all our 
species of Rhus and probably secure their fertilization. 
1 Individual plants almost intermediate in character between 
Rhus typhina and Rhus glabra are occasionally found, indicating 
the possibility of natural hybrids between the two species. 
2 See Special Report No. 26, U. S. Dept. Agric. 22, t. 3. 
8 Lawrence Johnson, Man. Mat. Med. N. A. 118. 
The berries of Rhus typhina, or Rhus glabra, and of many other 
Sumachs have a sour, astringent, and rather agreeable flavor and 
can be eaten with impunity. Their acidity is confined to the hairs 
Plukenet, Alm. Bot. 318. — Miller, Dict. No. 1. 
Rhus foliis pinnatis serratis, a, Linneus, Hort. Cliff. 110. 
Rhus foliis amplis pinnatis, racemis atro-rubentibus, Clayton, Fi. 
Virgin. 33. 
5 John Parkinson (1567-1650), a London apothecary, was herb- 
alist to James I., a position due to his botanical writings and to 
the fame of his garden near London, in which many exotic plants 
were cultivated for the first time in England. His first publica- 
