THE SUMACH, WALNUTS, HICKORIES, ETC. 223 



while tlieir steins lengthen, branch, and bear long, 

 plumy hairs, making large, light, and feathery or 

 cloudlike bunches, either greenish gray or ruddy 

 tinged.* The smoke tree grows wild from Missouri 

 and Tennessee southward. It is rarely cultivated. 

 Monntain Ash. The beautiful mountain ashf — which 

 Pyrm Americana, is, of coursc, no ash at all, but a 

 charming relative of the apple and pear — has a con- 

 ventional, compound leaf, which wo aid lead one to 

 suppose (if superficial appearances counted for any- 

 thing) that it was related to the sumach. This is not 

 the case, however, and a comparison of the charac- 

 ters of the two plants shows wide differences. The 

 sharply toothed leaflets, thirteen to seventeen on a 

 stem, are nearly if not perfectly smooth, as well as 

 the stem itself and the branchlets. The berries are 

 bright red, about the size of peas, and they appear 

 in their richest coloring, great flat clusters of them, 

 in the latter part of September. They remain on 

 the branches into the winter. The grooved leaf stem 

 in the early autumn often assumes a bright-red hue, 

 and the trunk bark is a dull, raw umber brown ; 

 when it is cut or bruised it smells like that of 

 the wild black cherry — not so surprising, in view 



* Vide Field, Forest, and Garden Botany, Gray, 

 f Sometimes called the rowan tree. 



