ANACARDIACEAE (CASHEW FAMILY) 



273 



Time of bloom: June to September. 



Seed-time: July to November. 



Range: Eastern part of the United States. 



Habitat : Fields, roadsides, waste places ; frequent in cemeteries. 



An escape from flower gardens and cemeteries, where it should 

 never be given a place, for it is as pervading and uncontrollable as 

 Toad-flax. Its tough, horizontal, creeping rootstocks cause it to 

 grow in dense patches, choking out all other growth. In pastures 

 it is said to be very injurious to grazing cattle, but the writer's 

 observation has been that cattle avoid it. 



Stems thickly clustered, six inches to a foot 

 in height, erect, scaly at base, very leafy above, 

 with few branches. Leaves linear, deep green, 

 smooth, those subtending the umbels whorled, 

 those on the stalks alternate, crowded, and ses- 

 sile. Rays of the umbel very numerous, the 

 flowers subtended by greenish yellow, heart- 

 shaped bracts ; involucres top-shaped, bearing 

 four crescent-shaped glands without appendages. 

 Pods rounded and granular, with smooth, oblong, 

 ash-gray seeds, caruncled at base. (Fig. 190.) 



Means of control 



FIG. 190. Cy- 



Close cutting just at blooming time when the press Spurge (Eu- 

 rootstocks are most depleted of their stored phorbia Cyparis- 

 nutriment, using salt to retard recovery. Small 

 areas are most quickly dealt with by grubbing out and destroying 

 the rootstocks. 



POISON SUMAC 

 Rhiis Vernix, L. 



Other English names: Swamp Sumac, Poison Dogwood, Poison Ash, 

 Poison Elder, Thunderwood. 



Native. Perennial. Propagates by seeds. 



Time of bloom : June. 



Seed-time: Fruit ripe in late summer but retained until winter. 



Range: New England and southern Ontario to Minnesota, south- 

 ward to Florida and Louisiana. 



Habitat: Swamps. 



