262 PLANTS GROWING IN DRY SOIL. 
SMOOTH UPLAND OR SCARLET SUIIAC. 
Rhus glabra. 
FAMILY © COLOUR ODOUR RANGE TIME OF BLOOM 
Sumac. White. Scentless. Maine southward to June-August. 
Florida and westward. 
Flowers : growing in compact terminal panicles. fyuzt: velvety, crimson 
hairy berries, clustered in bunches nine to ten inches long; acid and pleasant 
to the taste. JZeaves: one foot long; odd-pinnate ; divided into eleven to 
thirty-one lanceolate, serrate, glabrous leaflets. A shrub usually four to twelve 
ieet tall, although at times reaching twenty feet high. 
Still sits the schoolhouse by the road, 
A ragged beggar sunning ; 
' Around it still the sumachs grow 
And blackberry vines are running.” —W HITTIER. 
What an irresistible charm the sumacs must have lent to 
the little schoolhouse that Whittier tells us about, and how 
often the girls and boys must have thrust their firm, little fin- 
gers in among the closely packed bunches of berries. 
R. glabra is our most common species of the fields and 
waysides and is very decorative in theautumn. The shape of 
the clusters and their crimson colour at once gain our confi- 
dence, as it should be remembered that the berries of the poi- 
sonous species of the swamps, &. Vernix, page 53, are whitish 
and grow in axillary panicles. 
FIVE-FINGER. COMMON CINQUEFOIL. 
Potentilla Canadensts. 
FAMILY COLOUR ODOUR RANGE TIME OF BLOOM 
Rose. Yellow. Faintly fragrant. Maine southward Afpril-A ugust. 
and westward. 
Flowers : small; solitary ; axillary. Calyx: of five narrow sepals, alternat- 
ing with an under row of delicately pointed bracts. Covo//a: of five rosaceous 
petals. Stamens: numerous. /7%stz/s : numerous, forming a head. Leaves: 
divided into three obovate leaflets, the two lateral ones again divided and mak- 
ing the five stubby fingers which have suggested its name. S/em : growing 
close to the ground; silky. The plant spreads by runners. 
One of our dearest little field blossoms whose cherry yellow 
head peeps out among the grass in early spring. We find it 

