Smooth Sumac - Rhus Glabra

	Smooth Sumac - Rhus glabra Family: Anacardiaceae (Cashew Family) Also commonly called scarlet or common sumac. Most common sumac; a large shrub or small tree. Flowers \| Trees Index \| Trees Graphics \| Family Rosaceae \| Rhododendrons

One of the easiest shrubs to identify throughout the year, smooth sumac has a spreading, open form growing up to 15 feet tall. Tiny green flowers in the spring are insignificant, but are later replaced by large cones of crimson berries that remain throughout the winter. Leaves are alternate, compound and turn a beautiful scarlet in the fall. Buds are small, covered with brown hair and borne on fat, hairless twigs. Bark on older wood is smooth and grey to brown. This is the only shrub native to all 48 contiguous United States.

Smooth Sumac fruit crowd in upright clusters; they are covered with short, sticky red hairs. Mature in late summer, persist all winter.
Here's a killer recipe for wine made from sumac berrries. Raw young sprouts were eaten by Native Americans as salad. The sour fruit can be chewed to quench thirst or steeped as a drink much like lemonade. The berries are highly prized by many birds and small mammals, mainly in winter. Deer browse the twigs and fruit year-round. Habitat: Open uplands including edges of forests, grasslands and clearings, roadsides and waste places.

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Common North American Flowers
A flower is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants (plants of the division Magnoliophyta, also called angiosperms). The flower contains the plant's reproductive organs, and its function is to produce seeds. After fertilization, portions of the flower develop into a fruit containing the seeds.
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