504. WOODY PLANTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 
acuminate,—entire, polished as if varnished above, lighter and 
somewhat downy beneath, footstalk conspicuously winged be- 
tween the leaflets, and apparently jointed; becomes a deep pur- 
ple. Flowers greenish-yellow, in a terminal panicle, the lower 
branches of which are in the axil of leaves. 
In the sterile flowers, the calyx is 5-parted, with ovate, con- 
cave, pointed, green segments. The petals of the corolla pale 
yellow, concave, obovate or wedge-shaped, at last reflexed. 
Filaments subulate, shorter than the alternate petals. Anthers 
attached by the middle. Pollen orange. Abortive pistil short, 
stigma reddish, 3-cleft, on a reddish, annular disk. ‘The panicle 
of the sterile flowers is very long, twelve to eighteen inches, 
with the stock very downy. The sterile flowers continue to 
open through August, while the fertile ones are almost mature. 
The fertile flowers grow in much smaller panicles, three to 
six inches long, on shorter and less downy branches. 
Fruit a somewhat compressed, short, ovoid drupe, surmounted 
by the tri-fid stigma and scattered with gray dots. 
The berries have the same agreeable acid as those of the 
Smooth Sumach, and are used for the same purposes. In Mis- 
sissippi and Missouri, the leaves are used by the Indians with, 
or as a substitute for, tobacco. 
The varnished polish of the leaves, and the rich purple they 
assume in autumn, as well as the scarlet of the leafy heads of 
fruit, make this species one of the most beautiful of the genus. 
Sp. 4. Tse Poison Sumacu. &. venendia. De Candolle. 
Figured in Bigelow’s Medical Botany, I, Plate 10. 
I have followed Torrey and Gray in the name of this plant, 
as it is now ascertained that it is distinct from the true RB. vernix 
of Linn., Mat. Med. and of 'Thunburg,—A&. vernicifidra, D C., 
which it nearly resembles and with which it was long con- 
founded. 
The Poison Sumach, known also by the names of Dogwood 
and Poison Wood, is, perhaps, the most beautiful plant of the 
swamps. It rises, with a stem of light ash gray, to the height of 
eight or ten, sometimes of fifteen feet, with a diameter of two or 
three inches,—in rare instances, these dimensions are doubled,— 
