Fustic

Fustic (Fr. fustoc, from Arab. fustuq, Gr. πιστάκη, pistachio) Yellow Wood or Old Fustic, a dye-stuff consisting of the wood of Chlorophora tinctoria, a large tree of the natural order Moraceae, growing in the West Indies and tropical America. Fustic occurs in commerce in blocks, which are brown without, and of a brownish-yellow within. It is sometimes employed for inlaid work. The dye-stuff termed young fustic or Zante fustic, and also Venetian sumach, is the wood of Rhus cotinus (fustet, or smoke tree), a southern European and Asiatic shrub of the natural order Anacardiaceae, called by Gerarde “red sumach,” and apparently the “coccygia” and “cotinus” of Pliny (Nat. Hist. xiii. 41, xvi. 30). Its colouring matter is fisetin, C15H10O6, which was synthesized by S. von Kostanecki (Ber., 1904, 37, p. 384). (See Dyeing.)

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