RHUS 395 



appear to have been conclusively established, although the testimony of 

 patients is on record who aver that they have had second and third attacks, 

 although they have never been near the plant after the first. In my experience 

 mere contiguity to the plant without touching it will not induce skin poisoning, 

 although when in flower the escaping pollen appears to have evil effects, 

 especially on the eyes, in N. America. 



There is one other property of this remarkable plant to which attention 

 may be drawn. This is the indelibility of its juice when applied to linen. It 

 produces a quite ineradicable stain, and is, in fact, one of the best possible 

 marking inks available. 



A popular confusion exists between this plant and the harmless creeper 

 (Vitis inconstans or Ampelopsis Veitchii) so much used for covering the walls 

 of houses. The vine is easily distinguished by its mostly simple leaves, and 

 by its tendrils, neither of which the Rhus possesses (it is always trifoliolate). 

 The confusion has been increased by the Rhus being grown in nurseries and 

 gardens under the wrong and misleading names of "Ampelopsis Hoggii " 

 and "A. japonica." 



The climbing form from Japan, mentioned above as having bristly fruits, 

 has lately been distinguished as a species, R. ORIENTALIS, C. K. Schneider. 



R. TRICHOCARPA, Miquel. 



A deciduous tree of slender habit, 20 to 25 ft. high. Leaves from 12 to 

 20 ins. long, carrying thirteen to seventeen leaflets, which are broadly ovate, 

 entire, \\ to 2^- ins. long, largest towards the apex of the leaf, very downy on 

 both sides. Flowers in slender, downy, long-stalked panicles, inconspicuous. 

 Fruits described as "large, pale, prickly drupes, ripening in August and 

 September," and produced in pendulous clusters (Sargent). 



Native of Japan, common in the forests of Yezo, and on the mountains of 

 the main islands ; introduced to the United States by Prof. Sargent about 

 1892, and thence to Kew a few years later. It has proved hardy, and flowers 

 in June. No hardy tree or shrub is more beautiful in its autumn colouring 

 than this, the leaves turning a deep orange-scarlet. 



R. TYPHINA, Linnceus. STAG'S-HORN SUMACH. 

 (R. hirta, Sudworth.) 



A deciduous, small tree of gaunt, flat-topped habit, occasionally 25 or more 

 feet high ; branchlets thick, very pithy, yielding when cut a copious, yellowish 

 white, thick juice, soon turning black and hard on exposure ; all the young 

 bark is covered with short, dense, reddish hairs. Leaves pinnate, i to 2 ft. 

 long, consisting of from about thirteen to twice as many leaflets, which are 

 oblong-lanceolate, 2 to 4^ ins. long, \ to I in. wide ; long-pointed, toothed, 

 covered with brownish hairs when young, nearly or quite smooth by autumn 

 (the stalk remaining downy). Female flowers crowded in a dense, pyramidal, 

 very hairy panicle 4 to 8 ins. long ; male flowers (which are borne on separate 

 plants) greenish, and on a bigger, more open panicle. Fruits closely packed 

 in dense panicles, and covered thickly with crimson hairs. 



Native of Eastern N. America, and cultivated in England since the reign 

 of James I. The female plant is one of the handsomest of sumachs, for, added 

 to its finely coloured fruit clusters, its leaves acquire in autumn rich shades 

 of orange, red, and purple. The male plant, which colours its leaves too, is 

 sometimes known as " R. viridiflora." This tree succeeds remarkably well in 

 some of the murkiest of London suburbs. It is sometimes used as a fine- 

 foliaged summer shrub, grown in a group, and cut back every spring almost to 



