608 



TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



with red, and marked by large elevated dark red-brown circular excrescences, and 

 separating into large thin papery scales. Wood light, soft, coarse-grained, light 

 brown streaked with green and often tinged with red, with thin lighter colored 

 sapwood of 4 or 5 layers of annual growth. The leaves are rich in tannin and are 

 gathered in large quantities and ground for curing leather and for dyeing. 



Distribution. Dry hillsides and ridges; widely and generally distributed from 

 northern New England to Manitee and the shores of Caximbas Bay, Florida, and to 

 eastern Nebraska and Kansas and the valley of the San Antonio River, Texas; also 

 in Cuba; in the United States arborescent only in southern Arkansas and eastern 

 Texas; east of the Mississippi River rarely more than a few feet high and spreading 

 by underground stems on gravelly sterile soil into broad thickets; varying consider- 

 ably in the size and form of the leaflets. The most distinct and probably the most 

 constant of these varieties is var. lanceolata, Gray, a small tree growing on the prairies 

 of eastern Texas to the valley of the Rio Grande, often forming thickets on river 

 bluffs or on the banks of small streams, and distinguished by its narrow acute often 

 falcate narrow leaflets and by its larger inflorescence and fruit. It is a tree some- 

 times 25-30 high, with a trunk occasionally 8' in diameter, covered by dark gray 

 bark marked by lenticular excrescences. The flowers appear in July and August and 

 the dull red or sometimes green fruit ripens in early autumn and falls before the 

 beginning of winter. 



Occasionally cultivated as an ornamental plant in the eastern United States, and 

 in western and northern Europe. 



3. RhuB Vernix, L. Poison Dogwood. Poison Sumach. 



Leaves 7'-14' long, with slender usually light red or red and green petioles, and 

 7-13 obovate-oblong entire leaflets slightly unequal at the base and narrowed at the 

 acute or rounded apex, bright orange color and coated, especially on the margins 



and under surface, with fine pubescence when they unfold, soon becoming glabrous, 

 and at maturity 3'-4' long, l^'-2' wide, dark green and lustrous above, pale below, 

 with prominent midribs scarlet above, primary veins forked near the margins, con- 

 spicuous reticulate veinlets, and revolute margins, turning early in the autumn before 

 falling to brilliant shades of scarlet or orange and scarlet. Flowers about ' long, 



