Sumac, Smooth

Name: Sumac, Smooth

Botanical Name: Rhus glabra

Form: shrub, or some sumac species are small trees

Parts Used: berries and browse

 

Citation: Guenther, K. (2019, March 10) Smooth sumac as wildlife food [Web log post.] Retrieved: supply the date, from http://wildfoods4wildlife.com

Getting Started:

Sumac is 8^th on our Fabulous Fruit List, and it is an easy beginner forager plant to collect. But there are couple of safety issues to consider. It is 43^rd on the Best Browse List.

 Anacardiaceae (the Cashew or Sumac family)

Rhus (the Cashew or Sumac genus)

AND

Toxicodendron (the Poison  ivy, Poison oak, Poison sumac family.) Another common wildlife food genus, related to sumac.

Since there are poisonous plants in the Anacardiaceae family, and since poison sumac does resemble some of the food sumacs during its foliage stage, care should be taken when foraging. But the fruit stage of the Rhus sumacs and their Toxicodendron cousins—poison sumac, poison ivy and poison oak — look pretty different. The three poisonous plants all have white-yellow berries, while the food sumacs you are seeking have red fruits. That being said, there are some people who have allergies to the cashew family generally (cashews, mangoes, pistachios), and if you have these sensitivities, then you should avoid handling ANY of the Rhus species.

To give you an idea how concerned you need to be about the risk of encountering the poison sumac in your environs, go to the USDA website http://plants.usda.gov/checklist.html, enter the scientific name Toxicodendron vernix, put a checkmark in your state’s box, scroll down and click on display results. Then zoom in on your state until the individual counties display in green. If you indeed do have poison sumac in your county, spend some time doing additional research with the resources listed below until you feel more comfortable with identification, so you don’t come home from foraging scratching a budding rash.

The poison sumac tree (Toxicodendron vernix) is found only in very wet soils, like swamps and marshes—which is a big clue, because the sumacs we are seeking are usually in drier soils.  In the fruit stage, poison sumac has white berries that hang dangling downward, while the flower and fruit clusters of all the Rhus species are orange to red and stand upward in tight clusters. So I don’t think you will confuse the fruits.

But identifying sumacs by foliage alone is harder. Nowadays, the most frequently seen tree that one could confuse with a sumac is the non-native, invasive and otherwise nasty Tree-of-Heaven (Ailanthus altissima.) Tree-of-Heaven that is three to six years old is the same size as sumac, but will never produce the berry cluster. Tree-of-Heaven produces a very different seedpod cluster, a tassle of winged seeds in July or August, generally before sumac berries mature. Wearing disposable or washable gloves, run or crush a leaf of Tree-of-Heaven in your through hand—gloved so in case it is poison sumac you will not have skin contact. Tree of Heaven’s crushed leaves have a strong peanut-like smell, which is an easy identifier. Also, if you look at the base of a leaflet off one of the compound leaves, Tree-of-Heaven has an odd large tooth near the base of its leaflet. Sumac does not have this extra large tooth.

 

Common name	Virginia Rhus Species	Origin	Rare Plant Status
fragrant sumac	R. aromatica	native	yes, in some states (not Virginia)
winged sumac	R.copallinum	native	Not rare
smooth sumac	R.glabra	native	Not rare
false poison sumac	R.michauxii	native	globally vulnerable, critically imperiled in Virginia, and  is endangered with extinction.
staghorn sumac	R. typhina	native	Not rare

Virginia Botanical Associates. (Accessed March 2019). Digital Atlas of the Virginia Flora (http://www.vaplantatlas.org). c/o Virginia Botanical Associates, Blacksburg.

About this Species:  I am lucky enough to have found smooth, fragrant, winged and staghorn sumac all in my area! I love the brilliant red-orange leaves which start to turn from green into color just at the time the berries ripen. Eventually the leaves will drop and the berry clusters will be left standing alone to face winter as an easily recognizable winter silhouette. Smooth sumac often grows in stands and seems to like sunny banks.

The fruit is persistent on the shrub into winter. So while sumac fruit is not really a favorite wildlife food, it is an important winter survival food.

Flower Description: Clusters of flowers are small, yellow-green and each flower forms into a berry on the erect cluster.

Leaf Description: The large leaf is made up of 31 leaflets that are toothed. The leaflets arrange themselves opposite each other along the leaf stem (the petiole), with one extra leaflet at the leaf tip—an arrangement known as being pinnately compound. If you examine the whole leaf closely, you’ll see that the leaflets attach somewhat on the top side of the stem, so that the bulk of the stem is below the plane of the leaf. See photo below.

The leaves themselves alternate along the branch. Stems are reddish in color. 

Fruit Size: Each berry within the larger fruit cluster is about 1/8 inch (3.5 mm), round, red and velvety.  Each berry contains a single hard, gray-brown, pointy egg-shaped seed within.

Harvesting

		Jan		Feb		Mar		Apr		May		Jun		Jul		Aug		Sep		Oct		Nov		Dec
		winter		winter		late winter		early spring		spring		late spring		early summer		summer		late summer		early fall		fall		late fall
fruit																	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x
browse							x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x

Does this lend itself to being a good enrichment item? Yes! If a portion of a branch, leaves and berry cluster are harvested as one, the branch can be set up in a durable, weighted, dry vase and allow the birds to forage the berries off the plant at will. Sumac berries are a dry, long lasting food source well into winter, so you don’t have to worry about the fruits rotting, souring or fermenting. They will retain more of their nutritive value, though, if they remain dry. So set up the vase under a roof in the enclosure.

Nutrition: Smooth sumac berries probably have their peak nutrition shortly after they ripen, even though you can harvest them into winter. The berries are high in calcium and potassium (Elpel, 2013).  But they are overall low in energy and protein (Johnson, 2000). Exposed to rain and snow over time, some nutrients are washed away.

Harvesting Fruit:  Using pruning shears or scissors, cut off the berry cluster once it is deep red in color.

How to Store Prepared Fruit: You can remove berries off the cluster or keep the whole berry cluster intact. The moisture content of sumac is very low, so they are not likely to mold if kept in an airtight jar in the refrigerator. Due to low moisture they freeze well kept in an airtight container. Or if they are moist from weather, you can air dry them for 1 week in a paper bag and then store them in a glass airtight container at room temperature. Use within 1 year.

Rare Species in Virginia

False poison sumac (R. michauxii) is a plant globally threatened with extinction, so it should not be harvested at all. It is found in Dinwiddie, Brunswick and Nottoway counties of Virginia (especially in and around the Ft. Pickett area) as well as North Carolina and Georgia.   Foragers in those areas should avoid sumac harvesting unless they have high confidence of their identification skills and have thoroughly familiarized themselves with the local species.

County in Virginia	Species	Alert
Brunswick	false poison sumac	Globally vulnerable, critically imperiled in Virginia, and is endangered with extinction.
Dinwiddie	false poison sumac	Globally vulnerable, critically imperiled in Virginia, and is endangered with extinction.
Nottoway	false poison sumac	Globally vulnerable, critically imperiled in Virginia, and is endangered with extinction.

(Townsend, John F. 2015)

This chart may help you identify species:

Common name	Botanical Name	Plant height	Stem	Leaf	Leaf margin	Main axis of leaf (rachis)
false poison sumac	R. michauxii	mature height is 3 feet or shorter	long hairs on stem	hairy leaflet blades	coarsely toothed or doubly toothed	winged only toward the tip of the leaf
fragrant sumac	R. aromatic	mature height can be 6 feet	smooth or very fine down on stems	smooth leaflet blades	lobed	no wings
winged sumac	R. copallinum	mature height can be 30 feet	very fine down on stems	smooth leaflet blades	smooth, no teeth	winged all along the main axis of the leaf
smooth sumac	R. glabra	mature plants can be 20-35 feet	hairless stem	smooth leaflet blades	finely toothed, irregularly	no wings
staghorn sumac	R. typhina	mature plants can be 20-35 feet	long hairs on stem	smooth leaflet blades	finely toothed	no wings

Other Species:

Feed sumac fruit to:

On-line References:

Johnson, Kathleen A. 2000. Rhus glabra. In: Fire Effects Information System, [Online]. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Fire Sciences Laboratory (Producer). Available: http://www.fs.fed.us/database/feis/ [2016, December 21].

USDA, NRCS. 2015. The PLANTS Database (http://plants.usda.gov, 6 November 2015). National Plant Data Team, Greensboro, NC 27401-4901 USA.

Virginia Botanical Associates. (Accessed November 2015). Digital Atlas of the Virginia Flora (http://www.vaplantatlas.org). c/o Virginia Botanical Associates, Blacksburg.

Book References:

Elpel, T.J. (2013) Botany in a Day (APG). Pony, Montana: Hops Press, LLC.

Martin, A.C., Zim, H.S., Nelson, A.L. (1951). American Wildlife and Plants: A Guide to Wildlife Food Habits. New York: Dover Publications.

Peterson, L.A.(1977). A Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants if Eastern and Central North America. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co.

Peterson, R.T., McKenny, M. (1968). Wildflowers: Northeastern/North-central North America. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Scott, M. (2013). Songbird Diet Index. National Wildlife Rehabilitators Association, St. Cloud, MN.

Weakly, A.S., Ludwig, J.C., & Townsend, J.F. (2012) Flora of Virginia. Fort Worth, Texas: Botanical Research Institute of Texas Press.