ANACARDIACEAE (CASHEW FAMILY) . 275 
A very poisonous plant, far too common everywhere, for to many 
persons the touch of it brings disaster, blotching the skin with burn- 
ing “water-blisters” and causing the flesh beneath to swell hideously 
and throb with a pain so intense as to be alarming. Fortunately 
such an attack leaves no scars and the general health is not injured. 
Chemical analysis has shown that the poison is a nonvolatile oil, 
found in all parts of the plant, even the seasoned wood, but espe- 
cially in the growing leaves. It is insoluble in water, therefore wash- 
ing the skin after contact merely serves 
to spread the trouble; but alcohol will 
at once dissolve and remove it, and, 
if applied soon enough, will prove the 
prevention that is better than cure. 
If too late for that, a little powdered 
sugar of lead, dissolved in alcohol, 
will check the eruption and soothe the: 
pain. This remedy is also a poison, 
and care must be taken to keep it 
out of eyes and mouth, and of course 
it should not be used if the vesicles 
have broken; in such case dilute ex- 
tract of Grindelia’ will check their 
spread and soothe the smart. 
The plant is sometimes an erect and 
bushy shrub, sometimes prostrate and 
trailing, sometimes a long, woody vine, Fie. 192. — Poison Ivy (Rhus 
climbing tall trees by means of aérial Toxicodendron). Xt. 
rootlets. Leaves compound, with three 
leaflets, ovate to rhombic, pointed, usually entire but sometimes 
scalloped or irregularly few-toothed, the two lateral ones sessile or 
on very short stalks, the terminal one longer. In form they are 
somewhat like the leaflets of the Virginia Creeper, or Woodbine 
(Psédera quinquefolia), but it should be remembered that those are 
five in number like the fingers of the hand, and can be safely handled ; 
but “ Leaflets three, let it be.” Flowers in loose, axillary panicles, 
small, greenish white, with five-parted calyx, five petals, five sta- 
mens and one-celled ovary. Fruit also greenish white, smooth, 
and waxy, dangling in clusters of about the size of small currants, 
