CERTAIN POISONOUS PLANTS 



flowers and fruit like those of the Swamp Sumac. 

 This 3-leaflet arrangement serves to distinguish the 

 plant from the harmless but somewhat similar look- 

 ing Virginia Creeper or American Ivy, which has 

 leaves of five parts. On the Pacific Slope, the rep- 

 resentative poisonous Elms is E. diversiloha, T. & G., 

 commonly called Poison Oak. It is in general 

 appearance like the eastern Poison Ivy, either bushy 

 or climbing, but the leaflets are variously lobed and 

 toothed, suggesting an oak. Among popular reme- 

 dies in California for Rhus poisoning is a strong 

 decoction made by boiling the leaves of the ^lan- 

 zanita, applied hot and repeatedly to the affected 

 parts. The historian Bancroft records that a 

 Spanish expedition in the Southwest early in the 

 eighteenth centur}^, under Governor Valverde, suf- 

 fered greatly from Poison Oak and found relief by 

 chewing chocolate and applying the saliva to the 

 eruption. Rather a pleasing remedy, on the whole, 

 one would fancy; and I am glad to think of those 

 old campaigners in the desert having that little taste 

 of sweet in the bitterness of their lot. 



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