Smooth Sumac
"Scarlet Sumac" "Common Sumac"
Rhus glabra L.
Description: The most
common sumac; a large shrub or sometimes a small tree with open,
flattened crown of a few stout, spreading branches and with whitish
sap.
Height: 20" (6 m).
Diameter: 4" (10 cm).
Leaves: pinnately compound; 12: (30 cm) long; with slender axis.
11-31 leaflets 2-4: (5-10 cm) long; lance-shaped;
saw-toothed; hairless; almost stalkless. Shiny green above, whitish
beneath; turning reddish in autumn.
Bark: brown; smooth or becoming scaly.
Twigs: gray, with whitish bloom; few very stout, hairless.
Flowers: less than 1/8" (3 mm) wide; with 5 whitish
petals; crowded in upright clusters to 8" (20 cm) long, with
hairless branches; male and female usually on separate plants;
in early summer.
Fruit: more than 1/8" (3 mm) in diameter; rounded,
1-seeded, numerous, crowded in upright clusters; dark red, covered
with short sticky red hairs; maturing in late summer, remaining
attached in winter.
Habitat: Open uplands including edges of forests, grasslands,
clearings, roadsides, and waste places, especially in sandy soils.
Range E. Saskatchewan east to S. Ontario and Maine, south the NW
Florida, and west to central Texas; also in mountains from S. British
Columbia south to SE Arizona and in New Mexico; to 4500" (1372 m)
in the East; to 7000" (2134 m) in the West.
The only shrub or tree species native to all 48 contiguous states. One
cultivated variety has dissected or bipinnate leaves. Raw young
sprouts were eaten by the Indians as salad. The sour fruit, mostly
seed, can be chewed to quench thirst or prepared as a drink similar to
lemonade. It is also consumed by birds of many kinds and small
mammals, mainly in winter. Deer browse the twigs and fruit throughout
the year.
