5. BHUS TYPHINA SUMACH. 45 



MEDICINAL PROPERTIES. The bark, which possesses a pungent bitter 

 taste, has been found to possess "active anthelmintic properties. In a 

 pondered state, in dose from 7 or 8 to 30 grains (0.46 to 1.95 Gin.), it 

 has been given in several cases of tape-worm in the human subject, and 

 has proved remarkably successful in causing its expulsion, at the same 

 time having a not very violent cathartic action. In China the bark is 

 very popular as a remedy for dysenteric and other bowel complaints. 5 ' * 



ORDER ANACARDIACE/E, CHESHEW FAMILY. 



Leaves alternate, simple or compound, without pellucid dots; stipules none. 

 Flowers polypetalous, small, often polygamous, regular and furnished with bracts; 

 sepals 3-5, united at the base, persistent; petals 5 (or sometimes wanting), imbricated 

 in the bud; stamens 5, alternate with the petals, perigynous; ovary free, 1 -celled and 

 1-ovuled; styles or stigmas 3. Fruit a berry or drupe, the seed containing no 

 albumen. 



Trees or shrubs with a milky resinous or gummy acrid juice, which as well as the 

 exhalations are often poisonous. 



GENUS RHUS, L. 



Leaves mostly compound. Flowers greenish or yellowish, often imperfect by 

 abortion; styles 3; stigmas capitate. Fruit a small, indehiscent, 1-seeded, dry drupe. 

 (The name Rhus is the old Latin and Greek for the Sumac.) 



5. RHUS TYPHINA, L. 



SUMACH, STAG-HORN SUMACH, VIRGINIAN SUMACH. 

 Ger., Hirschkolben Sumach; Fr., Sumac; Sp., Zumaque. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. Leaves odd-pinnate with 11-31 oblong-lanceolate pointed 

 and serrate leaflets more or less pubescent beneath. Branches, leaf-stalks etc. 

 densely velvety hairy. Flowers (June) polygamous in terminal thyrses. Fruit 

 globular, clothed with very acid crimson hairs and containing a smooth stone. Not 

 poisonous to the touch as are some representatives of the genus. 



A small tree, with thick straggling branches, very rarely attaining the 

 dimensions of 20 ft. (6 m.) in height and 10 in. (0.25 m.) in diameter of 

 trunk at base; often hardly more than a shrub. The bark when 

 bruised yields an abundant milky and sticky juice. The leaves put on 

 their bright autumnal tints early, and the compact bunches of downy 

 red fruit on the tips of the branches give the tree a striking and charac- 

 teristic appearance after the leaves have fallen. The name "Stag-horn" 

 is given to this species from the resemblance we see in the soft velvety 

 coating of the twigs, to that of the stags antlers when growing and " in 

 the velvet." The branching of the tree likewise is quite suggestive of 

 the branching of a pair of antlers. 



*U. S. Dispensatory, 15th ed., p. 1564. 



