A tree, 25°—30° high, with colorless watery juice, a short stout trunk 8′—10′ in diameter, erect spreading branches, and branchlets at first dark green tinged with red and more or less densely clothed with short fine or sometimes ferrugineous pubescence, appearing slightly zigzag at the end of their first season from the swellings formed by the prominent leaf-scars, and then pale reddish brown, slightly puberulous and marked by conspicuous dark-colored lenticels; or at the north usually a low shrub rarely more than 4°—5° tall. Winter-buds minute, nearly globose, and covered with dark rusty brown tomentum. Bark of the trunk ⅓′—½′ thick, light brown tinged with red, and marked by large elevated dark red-brown circular excrescences, and separating into large thin papery scales. Wood light, soft, coarse-grained, light brown streaked with green and often tinged with red, with thin lighter colored sapwood of 4 or 5 layers of annual growth. The leaves are rich in tannin and are gathered in large quantities and ground for curing leather and for dyeing.
Distribution. Dry hillsides and ridges; widely and generally distributed from northern New England to southern Florida, and to southeastern Iowa, southeastern Nebraska, eastern Kansas and the valley of the San Antonio River, Texas; in Cuba; in the United States arborescent only southward; at the north rarely more than a few feet high and spreading by underground stems on gravelly sterile soil into broad thickets; varying considerably in the size and form of the leaflets. The most distinct and probably the most constant of these varieties is var. lanceolata A. Gray, a small tree growing on the prairies of eastern Texas to the valley of the Rio Grande and to southeastern New Mexico, often forming thickets on river bluffs or on the banks of small streams, and distinguished by its narrow acute often falcate leaflets and by its larger inflorescence and fruit. A tree sometimes 25°—30° high, with a trunk occasionally 8′ in diameter, covered by dark gray bark marked by lenticular excrescences. The flowers appear in July and August and the dull red or sometimes green fruit ripens in early autumn and falls before the beginning of winter.
Occasionally cultivated as an ornamental plant in the eastern United States, and in western and northern Europe.
3. [Rhus vernix] L. Poison Dogwood. Poison Sumach.
Leaves 7′—14′ long, with a slender usually light red or red and green petiole, and 7—13 obovate-oblong entire leaflets slightly unequal at base and narrowed at the acute or rounded apex, bright orange color and coated, especially on the margins and under surface, with fine pubescence when they unfold, soon becoming glabrous, and at maturity 3′—4′ long, 1½′—2′ wide, dark green and lustrous above, pale below, with a prominent midrib scarlet above, primary veins forked near the margins, conspicuous reticulate veinlets, and revolute margins; turning early in the autumn before falling to brilliant shades of scarlet or orange and scarlet. Flowers about ⅛′ long, appearing in early summer on slender pubescent pedicels bibracteolate near the middle, in long narrow axillary pubescent panicles crowded near the end of the branches, with acute pubescent early deciduous bracts and bractlets; calyx-lobes acute, one third the length of the yellow-green acute petals erect and slightly reflexed toward the apex; stamens nearly twice as long as the petals, with slender filaments and large orange-colored anthers, in the fertile flower not more than half the length of the petals, with small rudimentary anthers; ovary ovoid-globose, with short thick spreading styles terminating in large capitate stigmas. Fruit ripening in September and often persistent on the branches until the following spring, in long graceful racemes, ovoid, acute, often flattened and slightly gibbous, tipped with the dark remnants of the styles, glabrous, striate, ivory-white or white tinged with yellow, very lustrous, and about ½′ long; stone conspicuously grooved, the wall thin, membranaceous; seed pale yellow.
A tree, with acrid poisonous juice turning black on exposure, occasionally 25° high, with a trunk 5′—6′ in diameter, slender rather pendulous branches forming a narrow round-topped head, and slender glabrous branchlets reddish brown and covered with minute orange-colored lenticels when they first appear, orange-brown at the end of their first season, becoming light gray and marked by large elevated conspicuous leaf-scars; more often a shrub, with several slender clustered stems. Winter-buds acute and covered with dark purple scales puberulous on the back, and ciliate on the margins with short pale hairs, the terminal ⅛′—¾′ long and two or three times larger than the axillary buds. Bark of the trunk thin, light gray, smooth or sometimes slightly striate. Wood light, soft, coarse-grained, light yellow streaked with brown, with lighter colored sapwood.
Distribution. Wet swamps often inundated during a portion of the year; northern New England to northern Florida and southern Alabama, and westward to Ontario and southeastern Minnesota, western Louisiana and the valley of the Neches River (San Augustine County) eastern Texas; common and one of the most dangerous plants of the North American flora. An infusion of the young branches and leaves is employed in homœopathic practice, and the juice can be used as a black lustrous durable varnish.
4. [Rhus integrifolia] B. & H. Mahogany.
