SUMACH FAMILY 



bud yellow green, covered as are the shoot and petiole with bright 

 red hairs. When full grown they become smooth, somewhat darker 

 above, and pale or whitish beneath. In autumn they turn scarlet, 

 varied by shades of crimson, yellow, and orange. 



Floivers. — May, June. Dioecious, yellowish green, sometimes 

 tinged with red. In dense panicles with downy stems and branches 

 and large bracts which fall at the opening of the flowers. The pani- 

 cle of sterile flowers is eight to twelve inches long, five to six inches 

 broad, with spreading branches and is nearly a third larger than the 

 more compact fertile panicle. 



Calyx. — Five-lobed, lobes acute, hairy ; imbricate in bud, in 

 staminate flowers shorter than the petals ; in pistillate flowers about 

 the same length. 



Corolla. — Petals five, imbricate in bud, longer than and alternate 

 with the lobes of the calyx, inserted under the margin of the fleshy 

 red disk surrounding the ovary. In staminate flower, yellow green 

 tinged with red, strap-shaped ; in pistillate, green, narrow and acu- 

 minate. 



Stamens. — Five, inserted on the disk, alternate with the petals ; in 

 staminate flowers exserted with large, bright, orange-colored anthers ; 

 in the pistillate flower, short with rudimentary anthers. Anthers 

 large, introrse. 



Pistil. — Ovary ovoid, downy, with three short spreading styles ; in 

 the staminate flower often rudimentary. 



Fruit. — Dry drupe ; not poisonous. Borne in terminal thyrse-like 

 panicles six to eight inches long, two to three inches broad, which 

 become full grown and bright red in August but not fully mature 

 until October and remain on the tree all winter. Depressed-globular, 

 with a thin covering, clothed with long crimson hairs. Cotyledons 

 flat, leaf-like. 



The Velvet Sumach is well named, for its twigs and 

 branches are really velvety to the eye and to the touch. No 

 other of our native trees sends forth its leaves and twigs with 

 so royal a covering. The branchlets are coated with long, 

 soft, pink hairs wdien they first come forth, later these turn a 

 bright green, then brown and finally in their second summer 

 become short and almost black. For two years the growing 

 wood of the Sumach is clothed in velvet. 



The name Staghorn may be explained in tw^o ways, one 

 quite as good as the other. Some say that the early observ- 

 ers saw a certain likeness between the forking leafless 

 branches and a stag's horn, others, that the soft velvety down 



go 



