153. RHUS OVATA LEMONADE TREE. 25 



brown color with lighter whitish sap-wood. Specific Gravity, 0.4909; 

 Percentage of Ash, 0.54; Relative Approximate Fuel Value, 0.4882; 

 Coefficient of Elasticity, 78,032; Modulus of Rupture, 684; Resist- 

 ance to Longitudinal Pressure, 381; Resistance to Indentation, 162; 

 Weight of a Cubic Foot in Pounds, 30.59. 



USES. Extensively used in Washington and Oregon for turned- 

 work, tool -handles, etc., and in the manufacture of furniture, for 

 which the " figured " trees occasionally found are especially valued. 

 Sugar is occasionally made from this species. The tree is also of 

 recognized value for ornamental purposes, and for that use it has been 

 introduced into Europe. 



MEDICINAL PROPERTIES have not been ascribed to this species. 



ORDER ANACARDIACEJE : 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, LINNAEUS. 



Leaves alternate, mostly compound (rarely simple) without stipules. Flowers 

 minute, white or greenish, polygamous or dioecious by abortion, in axillary or 

 terminal compound panicles; calyx 5-lobed, generally persistent; petals 5, longer 

 than the lobes of the calyx and inserted under the margin of the disk which sur- 

 rounds the base of the free ovary, imbricated in aestivation; stamens 5, alternate 

 with the petals, with sublulate filaments and oblong introrse 2-celled anthers, 

 attached by the back and longitudinally dehiscent, rudimentary in the pistillate 

 flowers; pistil with t-celled ovary, three terminal styles with capitate stigmas, the 

 ovary containing a single anatropous ovule suspended by a funiculus rising from 

 the base of the cell. Fruit a smooth or hairy berry with thin dryish and resinous 

 sarcocarp and crustaceous or horny endocarp; seed destitute of albumen and with 

 thin membranous testa. 



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



153. RHUS OVATA, WATSON. 

 LEMONADE TREE. 



Ger., Limonadenbaum; Fr., Arbre de Limonade; Sp., Arbol de 



Limonada. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: Leases simple, ovate to orbicular-ovate, acute or 

 acuminate, revoluteand entire or rarely sparingly toothed, thick coriaceous, shin- 

 ing dark yellowish green above, paler below. 2-3 in. long, evergreen, with stout 

 reddish minutely pubescent petioles 4-8 lines long and broad mid-ribs: branch- 

 lets minutely pubescent. Flowers in dense panicled terminal spikes. ^ in. long 

 or less, the "pedicels conspicuously furnished with rounded puberulous bracts; 



