SUMACH. 
peucedanum—the latter signifying “a parched 
pike”—from its strong, fetid, resinous smell ; 
and its roots were formerly in request for old 
coughs, difficulty of breathing, deep-seated pul- 
monary complaints, jaundice, and obstructions 
of the liver, but have now lost their medicinal 
reputation.—Nearly twenty species, principally 
hardy, perennial-rooted, and yellow - flowered, 
have been introduced to British botanical collec- 
tions from Continental Europe, Northern Asia, 
and other regions; but they possess little interest. 
SUMACH,—botanically hus. A large and 
diversified genus of exotic ligneous plants, of the 
terebinth order. A few species have been intro- 
duced to Britain from Southern Europe and 
Eastern Asia; and nearly eighty from various 
parts of Africa and America. Three or four are 
creepers or climbers, a good many are upright 
deciduous shrubs or trees, and the rest are up- 
right evergreen shrubs or trees; nearly twenty 
are hardy, seven or eight are tropical, and the 
rest are suited to the greenhouse or the conser- 
vatory ; several are very poisonous or highly 
medicinal, three or four possess great or peculiar 
economical value, some are elegantly beautiful, 
and nearly all are more or less ornamental; the 
greater number love a soil of peaty loam, and 
some are propagated from seeds, some from layers, 
and most from cuttings. The gum-copal species 
has been noticed in the article CopaL; and some 
of the most interesting of the other species may 
be briefly noticed here. 
The poison-oak sumach, Rhus toxicodendron, is 
a poisonous and powerfully medicinal plant, and 
has a place in all the British pharmacopeeias. It 
is a native of North America, and was introduced 
to Britain in 1640, Itisa hardy, many-stemmed, 
decumbent, deciduous shrub, of seldom more 
than three feet in height. Its stems divide into 
slender, woody branches, and are covered with a 
brownish bark; its leaves are alternate, and 
stand on long footstalks, and comprise each three 
oval leaflets, angularly indented, deep shining 
green above, hoary below, about 3 inches long 
and 14 inch broad; its male flowers rise from 
the sides of the stalks in close short spikes, and 
have a herbaceous colour, and bloom in June 
and July; the female flowers are larger than 
the male, and come out in loose panicles; and 
the fruit are striated berries. The leaves are 
the parts used in medicine. They are inodorous, 
and have a mawkish, subacrid taste, and yield 
some of their virtues to alcohol and all to water, 
and possess stimulating and narcotic properties, 
and have been used as a remedy for cramp in 
the stomach, herpetic eruptions, and paralysis. 
The infusion of them excites a sensation of heat 
and pricking, and causes irregular twitchings in 
the affected limbs of a paralytic, and is proved 
by its action to contain a narcotic principle, and 
by chemical tests to contain gum, gallic acid, 
resin, and tannin. An acrimonious vapour, com- 
383 
a growing plant of the poison-oak sumach during 
the night, and can be collected in a jar, and is 
capable of inflaming and blistering the skin of 
persons of excitable constitution who plunge 
their arms into it. A yellowish milky juice 
exudes from a wound or fracture in the stems of 
the plant; and acts as a strong poison on some 
persons, but produces little or no effect on others ; 
and becomes black on exposure to the atmo- 
sphere, and then forms one of the best kinds of 
indelible ink for marking linen, and is used by 
the Japanese as a varnish. The poisonous power 
of the poison-oak sumach is possessed in a slight 
degree by most of the other sumachs, and inan emi- 
nent degree by R. pumila, R. vernix, R. radicans, 
and R. typhina; and both the inky and the var- 
nishing powers are also possessed by a number of 
other species. Several varieties of the poison- 
oak sumach occur, some with hairy leaves, some 
with very downy leaves, and some of fine erect 
habit,—but all of strictly one specific character 
as to both structure and properties. 
The tanner’s sumach, Rhus coriaria, is a na- 
tive of the Levant and of Southern Europe, and 
was introduced to Britain toward the close of the 
16th century. It is a deciduous shrub, of com- 
monly between 10 and 15 feet in height. Its 
branches are covered with a brownish hairy bark ; 
its leaves are alternate and pinnate, and com- 
prise each 7 or 8 pairs of leaflets, and a ter- 
minating odd one, and have a grand appearance ; 
its leaflets are ovate, obtuse, serrated, rough or 
scabrous above, and villous or downy below; and 
its flowers come out at the ends of the branches, 
in large compound spikes or clusters, and have a 
whitish green colour, and bloom in July. The 
bark of this shrub is said to be as tanniniferous 
as that of the British oak, and to be the chief 
substance used in the tanning of Turkey leather ; 
and the young shoots, ground to a coarse powder 
by a mill, constitute the well-known sumach of 
dyers,—a substance which,’ when used alone, im- 
parts to wool and woollen cloth a fawn colour 
inclining to green, and, when used for cotton 
stuffs. which have been previously impregnated 
with acetate of alumina as a mordaunt, imparts 
a very durable yellow. The plant is extensively 
cultivated in Spain and Portugal in a similar 
way in which osiers are cultivated in Britain, 
and yields a yearly harvest of young shoots to be 
bruised or ground for economical use; and, as it 
is quite hardy enough to withstand the winter 
in most ordinary situations in our climate, it 
probably would well repay somewhat extensive 
cultivation in our own country. 
The smooth sumach, Rhus glabra, is a native 
of North America, and was introduced to Bri- 
tain in 1726. It in a few years overruns lands 
laid down to grass in some parts of America, in 
the same way as furze does in Britain. It is a 
hardy deciduous shrub, comprising several well- 
marked varieties, and differing in ordinary 
bined with carburetted hydrogen, exhales from | height from 8 to 16 feet according to the variety 
