Home › Volumes › Trees › How to Know the Trees

Key to Species — Part 27

A. Leaves pinnate, of 9 to 31 leaflets, deciduous.

B. Fruit whitish, in loose, drooping, axillary panicles.

(R. Vernix) POISON SUMACH

BB. Fruit red, in erect, compact terminal panicles.

C. Branches, fruit clusters and leaf stalks densely hairy; leaflets 11 to 31; juice milky.

(R. birta) STAGHORN SUMACH

CC. Branches, fruit clusters and leaf stalks pubescent; rachis winged; leaflets 9 to 21; juice watery.

(R. copallina) DWARF SUMACH

AA. Leaves simple, evergreen.

(R. integrifolia) WESTERN SUMACH

The sumachs form a temperate zone genus of a great tropical family, comprising fifty genera and 400 species. There are about 120 species of the genus Rhus; they are most abundant in South Africa. Sixteen species are found in North America, only four of which are ever trees. Of these, none compare in economic importance with the sumach cultivated in southern Europe, whose leaves contain 25 to 30 per cent. of tannic acid, and are regularly gathered and dried, and used in the tanning of fine leathers. The pistachio-nut tree, from Asia Minor, now cultivated in southern California, is a relative of our roadside sumachs, as is also the turpentine tree of southern Europe. They belong to the genus Pistacia, and are both commercially important.

The Japanese lacquer tree (Rbus vernicifera, DC.) exceeds all other species in value; its sap is the black varnish used in making lacquered wares. Each year about 130,000 gallons of this valuable substance are gathered in Japan and China. Each little tree yields but a few ounces, and is killed by the draining process. The acrid juice of R. Vernix, our poison sumach, is milky and turns black on exposure to the air, forming a substance very much like the lacquer varnish.

Staghorn Sumach, Hairy Sumach (Rbus birta, Sudw.)--A low, flat-topped tree, 30 to 35 feet high, with branches stout, erect, forked many times, and densely velvety. Bark smooth, brown; hair on branches soft, long, and changing from pink to green the first year; later, dark, short; shed the third or fourth year. Wood light, coarse, soft brittle, but satiny when polished, green streaked with orange. Buds pointed, in summer covered by leaf base, in winter almost buried. Leaves pinnate; leaflets 11 to 31, narrow, pointed, serrate, dark green above, pale to white beneath; velvety; autumn colours scarlet, orange and purple. Flowers, June, inconspicuous, greenish, in dense, conical, hairy clusters, the two sorts on separate trees. Fruit tiny, globular acid drupes, densely hairy, red, in large, compact panicles, which remain through the winter. Preferred habitat, uplands and gravelly banks. Distribution, southern Canada to Winnipeg; south to Georgia and Mississippi. Uses: Planted as an ornamental for its foliage and fruit. Wood used for walking sticks, and for inlaying boxes, tabourettes and other fancy articles. Twigs used as pipes to draw maple sap from the trees.

This largest of Northern sumachs is constantly seen on railroad embankments, in fence rows, and along the highways of wooded regions. In the summer its fern-like foliage covers all the ugliness of the most unsightly bank, and lifts among the green its fine clusters of ruddy or pink blossoms. In the fall these are lost sight of amid the glory of the leaves, which turn to all shades of orange and purple and red. For weeks they flame and glow in the soft autumn sunshine, then fade and fall, and the bare antlered branches, like candelabra, hold aloft the pointed red fruit clusters which burn on with gradual abatement to the middle of winter.

The glory of the staghorn sumach's colouring makes it one of the most desirable of ornamental trees for fall and winter colour effects. Its habit of spreading by root suckers makes it objectionable for planting except in situations where the trees can spread unchecked, and the massed effect of the foliage can be enjoyed at some distance. The fern-like leaves are much larger if the plants are cut back severely each spring. For screen and border shrubs this species is very satisfactory.

The Dwarf, Black, or Mountain Sumach (Rhus copallina, Linn.), is the soft, velvety species, fully as handsome, if not quite as large, as the preceding one. It grows all over the eastern half of the United States and beyond the Mississippi to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Usually a shrub, it rises to 30 feet in height in the mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina. It is the latest of all the sumachs to bloom. Its long pinnate leaves are lined with soft hair, and the central leaf stem is winged on each side between the pairs of leaflets. These are the most beautiful leaves to be found in the sumach family. They turn in autumn to dark, rich reds.