AMERICAN SMOKE TREE; CHITTAM WOOD; MIST TREE (Cotinus Antericanus, Nutt). N to M feet. Tall, round headed tree with slender, pendulous branches. Bark gray, with thin, oblong plates on surface; branches purplish red. Wood light, soft, coarse-grained, streaked orange-colored, with white sapwood. Used for fencing. Sap yields yellow dye. Leaves oval or obovate, simple, alternate, purple and silky when they open, becoming smooth, shining, dark green above, pale beneath, fuzzy on veins; 4 to 6 inches long, 2 to 3 inches wide, wavy-margined, blunt at ends, strongly feather-veined. Flowers April and May, minute, in loose, terminal panicles, dicecious. Fruit scant in quantity; most of the flowers on
fertile trees do not produce seed-bearing drupes. Sterile pedicels develop a feathery, plume-like system of bracts, that cover the tree with a cloud of pink and umber shades. Dist.: Sides of ravines and river banks, Tennessee to Oklahoma; Missouri, Alabama, Mississippi, and Texas.
The European Smoke Tree, or Venetian Sumach (Cotinus Cotinus) is the more showy and common species seen in gar dens. This is a native of the Himalayas and northern China and so it exceeds our species in hardiness and vigor.