236 TREES GROWING IN SANDY SOIL. 



and rounded or tapering along the petiole at the base; entire or sometimes dis- 

 tantly toothed, when the sinuses are rounded, deep yellow, green above, 

 paler beneath and glabrous, excepting along the veins and midrib ; evergreen. 

 Flowers: dioecious ; small; growing in terminal, close racemes. Sepals: five; 

 rose colour; fringed at the margin. Petals: five; rose colour; rounded; re- 

 flexed. Stamens: five, their filaments slender, with light coloured anthers. 

 Berries : ovate ; deep red and covered with a dark, sticky pubescence ; their 

 juice viscid and resinous. 



About the clusters of tiny flowers of this shrub there is a 

 flushed, rosy look as though they were blushing. Its fruit ap- 

 pears more assured and is of a deep, pure red which makes a 

 fine effect among its leaves. The sticky substance with which 

 the berries are covered renders them unpleasant to handle, and 

 seems to warn one from eating them, especially when the rather 

 unchristian-like characteristics of some of their relatives 

 are remembered. Many cooling drinks, however, which are 

 said to be excellent, are made from the oily substance that 

 abundantly exudes from them. 



Growing inland in the sandy, sterile soil about California, 

 Rhus integrifolia is usually found as a small tree ; but when it 

 ventures to appear along the bluffs of the coast, it assumes a 

 low, prostrate position, that it may better resist the tempests 

 and high winds. For even greater protection, numbers of them 

 are often found growing closely together. Its wood is a clear 

 red and handsome. For fuel it is mostly used. 



Bark: ash colour ; furrowed. Thorns: numerous; nearly one to two inches 

 long; slender; straight. Leaves: simple; alternate; almost sessile; spatu- 

 late-obovate, with rounded teeth and entire at the base ; lustrous and glabrous 

 above at maturity, pubescent underneath ; thick. Flowers : white ; usually 

 one only, growing on a short peduncle at the end of the branchlets amid a clus- 

 ter of leaves. Calyx : with five long points which equal the petals in length. 

 Corolla : of five, rosaceous petals. Stamens : numerous. Styles : five. Fruit : 

 yellowish; globular or pear-shaped; covered with hairs when young and con- 

 taining five hard carpels. 



Often in the sandy soil of abandoned fields and forest bop 



