TANS AND DYES 233 



yellowish-brown. Europe imports fustic wood chiefly from 

 South America, while the United States obtains its supply of 

 the wood principally from Mexico and the British West Indies. 

 Fustic wood is imported largely in sticks 2 to 4 feet long and 

 3 to 8 inches in diameter, but also in the form of chips, powder, 

 or paste. 



A number of substitutes have been used for adulterating 

 fustic wood, among them osage orange, smoke tree (Rhus cot- 

 imis), southern prickly ash, espino, satin wood, yellow logwood, 

 and other West Indian species of Xanthoxylum. For some 

 purposes the wood of osage orange has been considered as 

 superior to true fustic wood. The osage orange has been used 

 successfully in conjunction with logwood and various other 

 mordant dyes. The dye obtained from osage orange appears 

 to be equally as fast as that of fustic wood. Both of these 

 woods are used in producing dye for leather and many experi- 

 ments along this line have already been conducted by certain 

 tanneries. Osage orange is used chiefly for making wagon 

 felloes and fence posts. The irregularity of the trunks, how- 

 ever, occasions large waste, estimated at 40,000 to 50,000 tons 

 annually in Texas and Oklahoma. 



As already indicated the osage orange is closely related to 

 true fustic and belongs to the botanical species Madura pomi- 

 fera. True fustic has often been called old fustic to distinguish 

 it from so-called young fustic, which was obtained from the 

 wood of Rhus cotinus. The latter attains only a small size, sel- 

 dom furnishing sticks more than 3 inches in diameter. On ac- 

 count of the use of the term young fustic for these sticks of 

 wood the idea gained ground that they were small branches 

 of the true fustic tree. 



BRAZILWOOD 



Several species of the leguminous genus Caesalpinia have 

 been used as a source of dyes. One of these trees, known as 

 C bwsHiettsis, has been called Brazilwood, although this term 



