72 Sumach ( Anacardiacece) 



Fruit, red, with crimson hairs, very sour. Stone, smooth. 

 A dry drupe. 



Found, very widely distributed in waste and barren places. 



A shrub five to fifteen feet high, smooth throughout 

 (excepting in its fruit) with straggling branches, often in 

 extensive clumps and thickets. The bark of this and of 

 other Sumachs is used in tanning. An infusion of the 

 berries makes a pleasant and cooling drink in fevers. 

 Also the berries yield a red dye. In autumn the leaves 

 take a brilliant shade of crimson. The Sumachs are often 

 cultivated ; they are easily raised from seed, or they may 

 be propagated from root cuttings. 



(2) Stag-Horn Sumach. R.typhina,L. 



Flowers, small, greenish-yellow, crowded in upright, pyra- 

 mid-shaped, terminal clusters. June. 



Leaflets, closely resembling those of the preceding species 

 (the Smooth Sumach), eleven- to thirty-one-toothed, 

 whitish and more or less downy beneath. Leaf-stem 

 and branchlets, especially toward their ends, covered 

 with a very dense velvet-like and often crimson-tinged 

 down. 



Fruit, rounded, somewhat flattened, covered with a crim- 

 son and very acid down. Stone, smooth. A dry 

 drupe. September, October. 



Found, oftenest in rocky and barren places from New 



Brunswick and the valley of the St. Lawrence through 



the Northern States, and southward along the Aile- 



ghany Mountains to Central Alabama. 



A larger shrub than the Smooth Sumach, sometimes 



twenty feet high, and often taking the tree form. The 



straggling, evenly spreading branches, with the leaves 



