DWARF, BLACK, OR MOUNTAIN SUMACH (Rhus copallina, Linn.). Shrub to 30 feet. Small, spreading tree with reddish, pubescent, zigzag twigs. Bark reddish brown, thin, breaking into large, papery scales. Wood as in preceding species. Leaves compound, alternate, 6 to 8 inches long, of 9 to 21 ovate-lanceolate, plain-margined leaflets, increasing in size toward apex of the conspicuously winged petioles. Blades dark green, silvery-downy beneath, when opening, becoming lustrous and smooth above; turning to dark, rich reds in autumn. Flowers late in summer, slow in passing, dicecious in compact, velvety panicles, red, conspicuous, individual flowers minute. Fruit red, hairy, persistent well into follow ing summer, showy. Dist.: Shrubby all over United States east of Rocky Mountains. A tree in Tennessee and North Carolina, Arkansas, and Texas.
Poisoisr Sum/keit; POISON DOGWOOD (Rhue Vernix, Shrub to 20 feet. Slender bush or tree, with narrow, round head of slender, smooth branches, pendulous, marked with orange lenticles. Bark thin, pale gray, smooth or striate.
Wood like that of other sumachs; sap acrid, poisonous, turn ing black. Leaves 7 to 14 inches long, with slim, reddish tinged petioles, and 7 to 13 leaflets, ovate-oblong, tapering, 3 to 4 inches long, downy and orange-colored when opening, becoming dark green and shining above, pale beneath, turn ing to scarlet and orange in fall. Flowers in slender, pubes cent panicles, grouped near end of branches, in early summer, yellow-green, incomplete, dicecious. Fruit, ivory-white ber ries, sometimes grayish, i inch long, in graceful, drooping clusters, ripe in September, persistent all winter. Dist.: Swampy ground, often inundated part of the year, Maine to Florida; west to Minnesota, Arkansas, and Louisiana. Very common, and poisonous to touch. More to be dreaded than poison ivy.