FUSTIC, a name given to two kinds of dye-wood used for producing a yellow color, and with chemical additions, other colors, such as brown, olive, and green. The name seems to be derived from the French piste& the name of the Venice sumach (rims entices, see SUMACH), a shrub found in the s. of Europe; and to have been transferred to a very different plant, the maclura tinctoria of Don, or mores tinctoria, a tree of the natural order moracete, a native of the West Indies, Mexico, Brazil, Colombia. etc. The F. is a large and handsome tree, the wood is of a greenish-yellow color, and is some times used in mosaic cabinet-work and turning, but chiefly in dyeing. About 10,000 tons are imported annually into Britain. The tree is particularly abundant in Campeachy. The wood contains a great quantity of coloring matter, which forms the most durable of vegetable yellow dyes; but as the color is rather dull, it is more used for producing other colors. The name OLD Fume is sometimes given to it, and YOUNG FUSTIC to the wood of riles cotines. These terms began to be employed about the beginning of
last century, from the mistaken notion that the one, in small pieces, was the wood of the young tree, and thepther, in comparatively large logs, of the same tree in a more mature state.—The ORANGE (q.v.) of North America (maclura aurantiaca) is nearly allied to old F., and its wood also affords a yellow dye. ' OLD FusTre, or yellow wood, is employed for yellow woolens yellow, and also to impart to them green and olive colors when mixed with indigo and salts of iron. It furnishes a yellow coloring matter, which may be obtained in crystals by evaporating its watery solution. This substance is termed moritannic acid, and its composition is represented by the formula C2611,60,,. The bichromates of potash and of lead have to great degree superseded the use of OLD Fume.