A RIVAL OF THE FABLED UPAS TREE 93 



having three leaflets or divisions of the leaf instead of 

 five, growing around his drawing-room window, and 

 actually spreading its branches and leaves over the 

 window of his wife's bedroom. He sent specimens of 

 the creeper to Kew, where it was at once identified 

 as the Rhus toxicodendron or American poison- vine or 

 poison-ivy. He caused the plant to be removed and 

 burnt, and, except for a slight attack in July, due no 

 doubt to fragments of the leaves still carried about in 

 the form of dust, his wife has recovered her health. 



I have looked into this matter with care, and I find that 

 (presumably in ignorance) nurserymen in England have 

 sold specimens of the poison-vine for planting as creepers, 

 under the name Ampelopsis Hoggii. The smaller-leaved 

 Virginian creeper, with self-attaching tendrils, is known as 

 Ampelopsis Veitchii, and is, like the larger Virginian creeper 

 (A. quinquefoliata), quite harmless. The poison-vine is 

 not an Ampelopsis at all, not even one of the Vitaceae or 

 vine family, as that genus is. It is a Sumach or Rhus, and 

 belongs to a distinct family, the Terebinthaceae. It has a 

 three-split leaf, not five leaflets, as has the large Virginian 

 creeper, nor a small three-pointed leaf, as has the Ampe- 

 lopsis Veitchii. The Veitchii frequently has the leaf also 

 split into three leaflets, but the stalk of the middle leaflet 

 is not relatively so long as it is in the poison-vine. The 

 differences and resemblances in the leaves of these plants 

 are shown in the accompanying illustration (Fig. 14), which 

 has been prepared from actual specimens for this book. 



The people of the United States are on their guard 

 against this plant, knowing its terrible properties. Sir 

 William Thiselton Dyer, formerly director of Kew Gardens, 

 tells me that specimens of the " American poison-vine " 

 are grown in the garden at Kew, and that he has been 

 present when American visitors (ladies) literally screamed 

 with horror on seeing it, and ran from it as from a mad 



