PLANT: Dioecious shrubs with rhizomes to 1.5 m tall, or vines climbing with aerial roots to 30 m tall.
LEAVES: trifoliolate; leaflets ovate, entire to serrate, terminal leaflets with a petiolule, the lateral leaflets subsessile.
INFLORESCENCE: narrow panicles, pendant in fruit.
FLOWERS: small, regular, five-merous; sepals connate at base, glabrous; petals cream to yellowish with dark veins; style three-lobed.
FRUIT: cream-colored, striate and glabrous.
NOTES: Ca. 15 spp; New World and e Asia. (Latin: poisonous tree). Gillis, W. T. 1971. Rhodora 72-237, 370-443. The ever present active poisonous compounds in the resin on the leaves, stems and fruits are catechols that cause dermatitis.
REFERENCES: John L. Anderson, 2006, Vascular Plants of Arizona: Anacardiaceae. CANOTIA 3 (2): 13-22.
Pet glabrous; fr a white or greenish-white to yellowish drupe, shining and glabrous or inconspicuously short-hairy, the hairs not glandular; allergenic shrubs or vines, with axillary, raceme-like, rather loose infls often drooping in fr; otherwise much like Rhus, and often included therein. Ca 10, New World and e. Asia.
Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.
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