FUSTIC (from Fr. fustoc; ultimately connected with Lat. fustis, stick). A name given to two kinds of dye-wood used for producing a yellow color, and, with chemical additions, other colors, such as brown, and green. The name in France (fustic) seems to be connected with fustet, name of the Venice sumac (Rhos coti nus), a shrub found in the south of Europe, and to have been transferred to a very different plant (Chlorophora tinctoria), a tree of the natural order Moraceu, a native of the West Indies, Mexico, and Northern South America. Fustic is a large and handsome tree with wood which is sometimes used in mosaic cabinet-work and turn ing, but chiefly in dyeing, for which its large content of yellow coloring matter specially fits it. Since the color is rather dull, it is more used for producing other colors. Old fustic, or yellow wood, is employed for dyeing woolens and also to impart to them, when mixed with indigo and salts of iron, green and olive colors. It furnishes a
yellow coloring matter termed moritannic acid, which may be obtained in crystals by evaporating its watery solution. The bichromates of potash and of lead, as well as some of the coal-tar products, have to a great degree superseded the use of old fustie. Young fustic, the wood of Rhus cotinus, contains a yellow coloring matter, to which the name fusteric has been given. It is generally used in combination with other dyes, in order to strike some particular tint. These terms, old and young, began to be employed about the beginning of the eighteenth century, from the mistaken notion that the one, in small pieces, was the wood of the young tree, and the other, in comparatively large logs, of the same tree in a more mature state. The osage orange (Maclura aurantiaca) of North America is nearly allied to old fustie, and its wood also affords a yellow dye. See OSAGE ORANGE; SUMAC.