502 WOODY PLANTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 
Sp. 2. Tse Smoorn Sumacu. &. glabra. L. 
Figured in Catesby, Plate 104. 
This is a handsome, spreading, leafy bush, usually four to 
six, rarely ten feet high, with irregular branches, growing by 
the sides of woods and enclosures, or in barren fields, in dry 
situations, and distinguished by its smoothness, the purple stalks 
of its compound leaves and a long head of yellowish-green 
flowers of an agreeable fragrance. The recent shoots are stout, 
smooth and of a shining green. 
The leaves are compound, often a foot or more long, with 
from 13 to 19 leaflets, on a large, smooth stalk, purple where 
exposed to light, swelling gradually towards the base, some- 
times a little hairy between the leaflets. ‘The leaflets are ses- 
sile, oblong-lanceolate, rounded at base or heart-shaped, gradu- 
ally tapering to a long point, somewhat reflexed at the margin, 
with a few almost obsolete serratures, or nearly entire, or acutely 
serrate, smooth and dark green above, glaucous beneath. Buds 
conical, white, woolly, concealed within the swollen base of the 
leaf-stalk. 
‘The flowers are in large, much-branched heads, from six to 
twelve inches long, on the ends of the branches; the compound 
branchlets of the flower-head alternating, as if they were the 
continuation of the leaves. The individual, sterile flowers are 
on a short, somewhat hairy pedicel, greenish-yellow; calyx 
short, segments 5, erect, triangular or oblong and tapering, 
green; petals of the same length or longer, concave, hairy 
within, ending in a pointed beak, bent inwards. Stamens 
short, issuing from beneath the edge of a scarlet, fleshy disk, 
and bearing large anthers, opening inwards. Styles 3, scarlet, 
club-shaped, nearly as long as the stamens. 
This plant sometimes overspreads considerable tracts in neg- 
lected fields, and by the toughness and size of its roots renders 
them difficult to be ploughed. 
The velvety, crimson berries, are astringent, and of an agree- 
able acid taste, for which reason they, as well as those of R. 
copallina, are sometimes used as a substitute for lemon juice, 
for various purposes in domestic economy and medicine, and to 
