Dillenius' Hortus Elthamensis (1732)
Johann Jakob Dillenius. Hortus Elthamensis seu, plantarum rariorum quas in horto suo Elthami in Cantio coluit vir ornatissimus et praestantissimus Jacobus Sherard...Guilielmi P. M. frater, delineationes et descriptiones quarum historia vel plane non, vel imperfecte a rei herbariae scriptoribus tradita fuit. London: 1732. 2 vols.
In his Hortus Elthamensis, the German-born British botanist Johann Dillen described and illustrated American plants growing in the Eltham garden of James Sherard in Kent, England. William Barton cites the uncolored engraving of Toxicodendron vernix (poison sumac) displayed here in his 1818 Philadelphia flora. He writes that it is a "very poisonous arborescent species, known well by…its effects on those who go within the sphere of its influence," and states that it grows "In deep swampy thickets in Jersey, not uncommon. In the swamp near Kaighn's Point, abundant."
The swamp near Kaighn's Point in Camden is now gone, as are the "abundant" trees of Toxicodendron. This species still occurs at scattered sites in southeastern Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey, but is not known from Philadelphia.