279. RHUS COPALLINA DWARF SUMACH. 23 



ORDER ANACARDIACE^: SUMACH FAMILY. 



Leaves mostly alternate and without stipules; branchlets terete and with large 

 pith. Flowers small, regular, polygamous, dioecious or perfect; calyx lobes mostly 

 5; petals of same number and imbricated in the bud or none; stamens as many 

 as the petals or twice as many ( rarely fewer ) and inserted with them on the 

 edge of an annular hypogenous disk; filaments filiform and anthers oblong. 

 introrse, 2-celled, longitudinally dehiscent; ovary usually 1-celled and containing 

 a solitary anatropous ovule suspended by a slender funicle rising from the base 

 of the ovary; styles 1-3, stigmas terminal. Fruit generally a small drupe; seed 

 with membranous or crustaceous coat; cotyledons fleshy and containing little or no 

 albumen. 



Trees and shrubs with resinous or milky juice, of about fifty genera and four 

 hundred species mainly of warm or tropical regions. Three genera are repre- 

 sented in the trees of the United States. 



GENUS RHUS, L. 



Leaves lostly 



unequally pinnate and deciduous, a few simple and persistent, 

 alternate. Flowers mostly dioecious in compound axillary or terminal panicles; 

 calyx mostly 5-cleft or parted and persistent; petals spreading and longer than 

 the calyx-lobes ; stamens 5, alternate with the petals and inserted with them under 

 the margin of the annular disk; pistil solitary, sessile, with three terminal styles. 

 Fruit a subglobose drupelet mostly in thyrses with thin dry hairy or glabrous 

 outer coat and a single bony or crustaceous stone; cotyledons foliaceous. 



Trees, shrubs and climbing vines of about one hundred twenty species, natives 

 mainly of the warmer parts of the north and south temperate regions. Some 

 are of great economic value, as those producing the lacquer and vegetable wax 

 of Japan, tannin, etc., and several possess poisonous properties. Sixteen or 

 seventeen species are natives of the United States of which about a half dozen 

 may be considered as trees. (Rhus is the classical Greek name of the European 

 Sumach.) 



279. RHUS COPALLINA, L. 



DWARF SUMACH. 

 Ger., Zwerg-Sumach; Fr., Sumac nain; Sp., Zumaque enano. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: Leaves deciduous, pinnate, 6-8 in. long, with pubescent 

 petiole and rachis, the latter winged between the leaflets; leaflets ovate-lanceolate 

 to oblong, subsessile, entire or remotely serrate towards the apex, acute or acu- 

 minate, lustrous dark green above, paler and pubescent beneath. Flowers in 

 midsummer, about % in. across, yellow-green, in short dense pubescent terminal 

 panicles, 4-6 in. long; the pistillate considerably smaller. Fruit in compact 

 erect or nodding clusters, often persisting on the branches through the entire 

 winter; drupe about % in. across, compressed, crimson, covered with short acid 

 hairs; stone smooth. 



Var. lanceolata, Gray, is a small tree of eastern Texas with narrower and more 

 falcate leaflets and larger bunches of flowers and fruit. 



Var. leucantha (Jacq.) de C. is another form found in Texas (near New 

 Braunfels) with white flowers. 



The Dwarf Sumach is a small tree, at its best only attaining the 

 height of 25 or 30 ft. (9 m.) and 8 or 10 in. (0.20 m.) in diameter 



