STUDIES OF PLANT LIFE 
Stac-HorN SumMac—Rhus typhina (L.). 
Though belonging to a very poisonous order of plants, our 
common native Sumac is more noted for its useful than its 
hurtful qualities. Both the Dwarf Sumac, R. glabra, and the 
common R. typhina are to be found all through Western 
Canada, in groves and on old neglected clearings, on rocky 
islets and by roadsides, the seeds being largely sown by the 
birds that feed upon the berries. 
The foliage of the Sumac is very graceful and highly 
ornamental to the landscape in the fall of the year, when 
its long drooping pinnate leaves, from nineteen to thirty- 
one-foliate, assume the most glowing tints of orange, scarlet 
and crimson. The flowers are of two kinds, or diccious, in 
close conical upright heads, terminating the branches; the 
fruit, small round berries, beset with soft crimson acid hairs, 
which remain persistent on the receptacle, around which 
they cluster and give to the tree a strikingly ornamental 
appearance. These beautiful crimson velvet-like cones con- 
tinue all through the cold wintry weather, forming a con- 
‘tinual feast for the late going and early coming birds—a 
bountiful provision for those pensioners on God’s providence 
who “neither sow nor reap, and yet our Heavenly Father 
feedeth them.” 
The term Stag-horn I imagine to have been suggested not 
only by the extended branches but also by the fine brown 
downy covering that clothes the branchlets and stems of the 
leaves and flower-bearing shoots, resembling the velvety 
down on the young horns of deer when they first sprout forth. 
The wood of the Stag-horn Sumac is of a fine yellow 
color, and the chips and bark are used as dyewoods. The 
bark is used in tanning and the root as a powerful astringent 
and tonic in intermittent fever, while the acid fruit can be 
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