218 SYLVA FLORIFERA. 



it was called Rhus Obsoniorum*, and Rhus 

 Coriaria, from its use in dressing of leather, 

 and for which purpose its branches are still in 

 great demand among the Turks for tanning 

 their Morocco leather. The elm-leaved 

 sumach, rhus coriaria, grows naturally in 

 India, Syria, about Aleppo and Rama, in 

 Italy, Spain, and the south of France, and 

 also near Algiers in Africa. 



Dr. Turner says, in his Herbal of 1568, 

 " The sumach groweth in no place of Eng- 

 land, or Germanye, that ever I sawe, but I 

 have sene it in Italy, a little from Bononye, 

 in the mounte Appennine." It appears, 

 however, to have been cultivated in this 

 country previous to 1597, as Gerard mentions 

 it in his Herbal of that year ; and from the 

 Catalogue of the botanic garden at Oxford, 

 it appears to have been planted there before 

 the year 1648. 



The flowers of this species of sumach grow 

 in loose panicules at the end of the branches, 

 each panicule being composed of several thick 

 spikes of flowers sitting close to the footstalks; 

 they are of a whitish herbaceous colour, and 



* The Tripoli merchants still find sale for the seeds of 

 this shrub at Aleppo, where they are in common use there 

 at meals to provoke an appetite, being ground into powder as 

 we grind mustard seed. 



