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Rhus glabra
Also called Rocky mountain sumac, Scarlet Sumac, Red Sumac, Scarlet Sumach, Smooth Sumach, Upland Sumach, Vinegar Bush
Smooth sumac is a spreading, open shrub or small tree native to North America, valued for its brilliant scarlet autumn color and red berry clusters. It thrives in full sun and tolerates poor, dry soils, making it very easy to grow.
Rhus glabra, the smooth sumac (also known as white sumac, upland sumac, or scarlet sumac), is a North American species of sumac in the family Anacardiaceae.
It is native to North America, from southern Quebec west to southern British Columbia in Canada, and south to northern Florida and Arizona in the United States and Tamaulipas in northeastern Mexico.
Native Americans ate the young sprouts as a salad. The fruit is sour and contains a large seed, but can be chewed (to alleviate thirst) and made into a lemonade-like drink. Deer forage the twigs and fruit.
Fragrant sumac · Chinese sumac · Winged sumac · Sicilian sumac · Lemonade sumac · Sugar sumac · Skunkbush sumac · Staghorn sumac · Sumac
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Rhus glabra by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
