The Sumachs and the Smoke Tree 



The large, simple leaves, 4 to 6 inches long and half as wide, are 

 not like sumach leaves; the flowers, however, are carried aloft 

 in terminal panicles, each sort on separate trees, and these, as 

 well as the individual nutlets, are sumach-like. In a panicle only 

 one flower in a hundred sets seed, so as a fruit cluster it is a very 

 scant one. Instead of fruits these panicles show a peculiar 

 feathery development of the bracts. These graceful and delicate 

 plumes, tinted pink to green, form in the aggregate a great cloud 

 of rosy haze or smoke, that makes it a thing of beauty in the 

 late summer. Then it earns its common names, smoke tree and 

 mist tree. 



The species ranges from Tennessee to Oklahoma, and south 

 into Alabama and Texas. It is sometimes seen in gardens, but 

 it cannot compete in hardiness nor in vigour nor showiness with 

 the much more commonly cultivated Coiinus Cotinus, Sarg., the 

 Venetian sumach, or European smoke tree. 



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