VOL. XLIX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 47 



pinnated toxicodendron of our North American settlements, is the true varnish 

 tree of Japan, as asserted by Mr. Miller ; and first he found it necessary to know 

 where this poison tree was described. This he was led to by Mr. Miller's letter, 

 where he says the poisonous quality is described in the Philosophical Transac- 

 tions, N° 367, and a very exact figure of a leaf of it there referred to in Pluk- 

 enet's Phytographia, tab. 145, fig. 1. See fig. 1, pi. 3. 



In order to know what Dr. Kaempfer has said of this matter, whose words 

 Mr, Miller seems to depend on, Mr. E. carefully translated his description both 

 of the true varnish tree, (fig. 2,) and the spurious one (fig 4 ;) and found that 

 his description of the true varnish tree, or sitz, does not agree with this toxico- 

 dendron, which Mr. Miller supposes to be the same ; for the leaf-stalk or midrib 

 of this, that supports the pinnae or lobe leaves, as well as the under part of the 

 leaves are quite smooth ; which is one specific character, that every botanist and 

 gardener knows is necessary to be observed in the proper classing the various 

 species of this genus of plants ; many of them being smooth, and many of them 

 downy ; whereas Dr. Kaempfef, speaking of the midrib of his true varnishtree, 

 calls it, " leviter lanuginoso," which may be translated, somewhat downy : and 

 when he describes the under part of the leaves, he says, " dorso incano et 

 molliter lanuginoso," that is, the under part hoary and covered with a soft 

 down. 



How far the bottom or lower part of each lobe, or small leaf, answers to the 

 drawing he has given of it, Mr. E. leaves to the curious botanist ; for he says it 

 is, " basi inequaliter rotunda," that is, having some inequality in the roundness 

 of its base : whereas the lobe leaves of the American pinnated toxicodendron 

 come to a point at their footstalks, nearly equal to that at top, as may be seen 

 in Plukenet's figure, (fig. 1,) here copied exactly. He likewise copied minutely, 

 for inspection, Dr. Kaempfer's figure of his true varnish-tree, as in fig. 2. 

 ^ Dr. Dillenius, late professor of botany at Oxford, has omitted these necessary 

 characters in his description of the true japan varnish-tree from Dr. Kaempfer 

 in his Hortus Elthamensis, where he gives it as a synonym for this American 

 pinnated toxicodendron : whereas had he been exact in the description given it by 

 his author, he must evidently have made it another species. This has misled 

 the accurate Linnaeus, who quotes Dillenius's synonyms for Kaempfer's arbor 

 vernicifera, or sitz-dsju. 



As another synonym, and in proof of our poison ash, or winged-leaf toxico- 

 dendron, being the true japan varnish-tree, Mr. Miller says in his letter, that 

 Mr. Catesby has given a very good figure of it, in his Natural History of Ca- 

 rolina, vol. 1, page 40, where he calls it toxicodendron foliis alatis, fructu pur- 

 pureo pyriformi sparso (fig. 3 ;) but as the bare inspection into Catesby's figure 

 of this tree will convince the curious inquirer, whether botanist or not, that it 



