418 Select Plants for Industrial Culture and 



leaves may be used like ordinary sumach. This bush can be 

 reared on inferior land. The leaves of American sumachs must be 

 collected early in the season, if a clear white leather like that from 

 Sicilian sumach is to be obtained. This can be ascertained by the 

 color of the precipitate effected with gelatine. Some of the 

 American and also other sumachs are important to apiarists. 



Rhus vernicifera, De Candolle. 



Extends from Nepal to Japan. It forms a tree of fair size and 

 yields the Japan-varnish. In India it ascends to 7,000 feet ; but 

 Stewart and Brandis are doubtful, whether the Japanese species 

 (R. VernixL.) is really identical with the Indian. The fruit yields 

 vegetable wax. R. Wallichii (J. Hooker) of the Himalayas is a 

 cognate species. 



libes aureum, Pursh. 



From Arkansas, Missouri, Oregon to Canada. Endures the cold 

 of Norway to lat. 70 [Schuebeler]. This favorite bush of garden- 

 shrubberies would probably along forest-streams produce its 

 pleasant berries, which turn from yellow to brown or black. Its 

 showy flowers are among the earliest in the spring. Professor 

 Meehan mentions a variety or allied species from Utah, with berries 

 larger than those of the black-currant ; they a,re quite a good table- 

 fruit, and of all shades from orange to black, and this variety 

 remains constant from seeds. Allied to this is R. tenuiflorum 

 (Lindley) of California and the adjoining States, with fruits of the 

 size of red currants, of agreeable flavor and either dark-purple or 

 yellow color. R. aureum, R. palmatum and some other strong 

 American species have come into use as stocks, on which to graft 

 the European gooseberry [C. Pohl]. 



Ribes Cynosbati, Linne. 



The prickly fruited Gooseberry -bash of Canada and the Eastern 

 States of the American Union. The berries are large. There is a 

 variety not so objectionably burr like-prickly. R. Cynosbati has 

 been hybridized with R. Grossularia, and the sequence has been a 

 good result [Saunders]. 



Ribes divaricatum, Douglas. 



California and Oregon. One of the gooseberry-bushes of those 

 countries. Can be grown in Norway to lat 69 40. ; Berries smooth, 

 black, about one-third of an inch in diameter, pleasant to the taste. 

 Culture might improve this and many of the other species. R. 

 Nuttalli (R. villosum, Nuttall, not of Gay nor of Wallich) is an 

 allied plant, also from California. 



