5g6 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1755. 



fruit or seeds might produce some kind of dye. Probably in making incisions 

 in the bark, a juice might be obtained which might be turned to some use; for 

 tlie blacks of our painted cloths, which are preparations of iron with nut-galls, 

 after a certain number of >vashings, are quite spoiled, and only leave a rusty co- 

 lour behind. But it is not so with the toxicodendron foliis pinnatis, since the 

 Abbe Sauvages assures, that it was 5 years since his linen, marked with the juice 

 of this plant, has retained the black spots, notwithstanding the great number of 

 washings in lye it had gone through. 



On the Same. By Mr. Philip Miller, F.R.S. p. l6l. 



That the above communication of the Abbe Mazeas might not appear in the 

 Transactions of the r. s. as a new discovery, Mr. Miller gives the following brief 

 account of what has been written on this subject. 



Dr. Kaempfer, in his Fasciculus Amaenitatum exoticarum, has given a figure 

 and description of this plant, which are so accurate, as to leave no doubt of its 

 being the same plant as the Carolina toxicodendron. His book was printed at 

 Lemgow, in 1712. His title of the plant is arbor vernicifera legitima, folio 

 pinnato juglandis, fructu racemoso ciceris facie. And by the inhabitants of 

 Japan it is called sitz vel sitz dsju, as also urus seu urus no ki. In the same 

 book there is a figure and description of the wild varnish-tree, which he calls, 

 arbor vernicifera spuria sylvestris angustifolia ; and the inhabitants, fasi no ki ; 

 but the varnish which comes from this tree is of little esteem. 



The seeds which were sent to the b. s. some years ago, for those of the true 

 varnish-tree, by the Jesuits at China, prove to be of this wild sort ; and the 

 account which those fathers sent of the manner in which the varnish is procured, 

 being so very different from that which is mentioned by Dr. Kaempfer, that 

 he here transcribes it, as follows. They first slit the bark of the branches of 

 the shrub, in different places, with a knife : from these wounds there flows out 

 a white clammy juice, which soon turns black when exposed to the air : the 

 same juice is contained in the leaves and stalks of the plant. This juice has no 

 other tasteable quality but that of heating without turning sour, but it is dan- 

 gerous to handle, being of a poisonous nature. When they make these incisions 

 in the branches of the trees, they place wooden vessels under them, to receive 

 the juice as it drops from the wounds ; and when these become dry, and will 

 afibrd no more juice, they make fresh wounds in the stems of the shrubs, near 

 their roots, so that all the juice is drawn out of them. They then cut down 

 the shrubs to the ground, and from their roots new stems arise, which in 3 years 

 is fit to tap again. This native varnish scarcely wants any preparation ; but if 

 any dirt should happen to mix with it, the Japonese strain it through a coarse 

 gause, to cleanse it ; then put it into wooden vessels, covering it with a little of 



