VELVET SUMACH 



which covers the growing shoot is the point of resemblance 

 to a young stag's horn. 



The beauty of the Sumach lies entirely in its foliage ; the 

 leafless tree is stiff, awkward and clumsy, but after the leaves 

 come out it is a different creature, clean-cut and beautiful all 

 summer long. Its long, pinnately compound leaves are borne 

 in tufts at the end of the branches, the main stem is either 

 horizontal or slightly curved upward, while the leaflets have 

 a decided tendency to hang down. These lift and sway with 

 every passing breeze, and when the whole is crowned, as it so 

 often is, with a great thyrsoid panicle of bright red fruit 

 standing out from the centre of each leafy tuft, the effect is 

 unique and beautiful. The little drupes which make the 

 panicles are covered with crimson down which is charged 

 with malic acid, sour but agreeable to the taste. They re- 

 main on the tree all winter and become the food of the birds. 



In autumn all the sumachs, large and small, are wonderful 

 for the brillianc)' of their coloring. They glow in scarlet and 

 gold which sometimes deepens to crimson and orange. The 

 Velvet Sumach makes thickets on its own account, its smaller 

 brother, R. glabra, the Smooth Sumach, follows its example, 

 and along the fences, over deserted fields and up the rocky, 

 gravelly, mountain-side they fling their magnificent beauty 

 through all the October days. 



*' Like glowing lava streams tlie sumach crawls 

 Upon tlie mount.ain's granite walls," 



The Velvet Sumach is dioecious. The staminate flowers 

 have an ovary, but this aborts in process of development and 

 only the pistillate produce fruit. The sterile trees flower 

 fully a week or ten days earlier than the fertile ones. 



The color of the wood is peculiar and striking, being a sort 

 of greenish orange, but the tree never grows large enough to 

 furnish wood available for anything more than sticks and 

 boxes. 



Rhus copallina, the Dwarf or Mountain Sumach, at the north 

 is a shrub, but in the mountains of North Carolina and Ten- 



91 



