XXXIV. THE POISON SUMACH. 505 
throwing out a few branches towards the top. The wood is 
brittle and the stem full of pith. The recent shoots are rather 
stout and tough, purple, or green clouded with purple, crowded 
with orange dots which soon change to an orange gray. The 
leaf-stalks are purple, or greenish-purple, or umber. ‘The leaf- 
lets, 3 to 13 in number, are nearly sessile, varying from ovate to 
obovate, lanceolate, unequal at base, acute below, somewhat 
rounded above, pointed at the end or slightly acuminate, entire, 
margin somewhat reflexed, dark green, and with a nch polish, 
the veins of a purplish red above, much paler, sometimes downy, 
conspicuously reticulate beneath. The flowers, which are small 
and greenish-yellow, are in open, loose panicles, from the axils 
of the leaves. The sterile and fertile flowers are on different 
plants, the panicles of the latter eight or ten inches long, those 
with the sterile flowers still longer. At the base of the partial 
footstalks are slender, oblong, tapering bracts. 'The segments 
of the calyx are ovate, the petals usually curved; the stamens 
longer and alternating with them. 
This is the most poisonous woody plant of New England. 
Some persons are so susceptible to its influence, as to be poisoned 
by the air blowimg from it, or by being near a fire on which it is 
burning. ‘The poison shows itself in painful and long-continued 
swellings and eruptions of the face and hands and other parts of 
the body. ‘These effects are exasperated by smelling or hand- 
ling the plant. Other persons handle and rub it, and even chew 
and swallow the leaves, with impunity. ‘These opposite effects 
are sometimes produced on individuals of the same family. In 
some instances, persons ordinarily exempt from its effects, have 
been poisoned by being exposed to its influence while in a state 
of perspiration. 
Professor Hopkins, of Williams College, informs me that he 
has found a decoction of the root of the Indian Poke of the low 
srounds, Verdtrum viride, very efficacious as a remedy in cases 
of poison from this plant. 
The near resemblance in all the properties of the Poison Su- 
mach, to those of the Varnish-yielding Sumach of Japan, from 
which, according to Thunberg, the best varnish of that country 
is obtained, has led to the belief that a similar substance might 
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