E 157 ] 
XXVII. Two Letters concerning Toxico- 
dendron^ 
LETTER I. 
Trom the Abbe Mazeas, F. F. S. to the Rev, 
Stephen Hales, Z). Z). F. R. S, Tranjlated 
from French, Janaes Parfons, M.D. 
and F, R, S, 
Read Dec 
175+ 
I 
SIR, Paris, Aug. 16, 1754. 
T is not long fince (while I was 
making fome experiments upon the 
painted cloths made in Europe, in order, if poffible; 
to bring them to greater perfection) I received a 
letter upon the fame fubjeCt from the Abbe Sau- 
vages, of the Royal Society of Montpellier. In this 
letter he communicated a difcovery of a plant, the 
juice of which adheres, without the leaft acrimony, 
to a cloth, with more force than any other known 
preparation. The colour is black, and the plant, 
which produces it, is the Toxicodendron Carolinianum 
foliis pinnatis^ Jloribus minimis herbaceis. 
I was then upon the point of going to St. Germain, 
where the Duke D’Ayen has a bontanical garden, 
which is the moft complete in the kingdom. My 
firft care was to confirm the Abbe Sauvages’s difco- 
very j they fhewed me the plant mentioned, which, 
they faid, was a native tree of Carolina, but which 
was 
1 
