Photo: Bruce Marlin — CC BY-SA 3.0 · source
Survives zone 3 through 9
Harvest calendar
Best planted in early spring after your last frost, or in fall before the ground freezes, depending on your climate.
Sumac — a souring SPICE (lemony), not a dessert fruit. ⚠ Know your sumac: the red-fruited Rhus in this entry are safe, but poison sumac (Toxicodendron vernix) is a wetland shrub with drooping WHITE fruit and causes severe dermatitis. Red and upright, fine; white and drooping, leave it.
- Hardiness
- Zone 3–9
- Habit
- Shrub
- Edible part
- Fruit
- Ripens
- Late summer–autumn
- Mature size
- Low suckering shrub 0.6–2 m tall, spreading 2–3 m wide; poor in containers
- Light
- Full sun to partial (most shade-tolerant sumac)
- Soil pH
- 6.0–7.5
- Environment
- Temperate
- Native range
- North America — eastern Canada south through the eastern and central United States to Mexico; open woodland, rocky hillsides, prairie edge and forest margins.
- Status
- Both wild and cultivated
- Years to fruit
- 3–5 yrs
- Growth speed
- 30–60 cm/year — fast, and faster sideways than upward once suckering starts.
- Spacing
- 180 cm (71 in) apart — about 3.2 m² (35 sq ft) per plant
- Leaf shape
- Alternate and trifoliate — just three leaflets, not the long pinnate leaf of the other sumacs, which makes it unmistakable in the genus — coarsely toothed, glossy and somewhat blue-green, and strongly aromatic when crushed.
- Root system
- Shallow and strongly rhizomatous — rhizomes on smooth sumac have been traced to 3.4 m (11 ft), each throwing up numerous shoots — so a single plant becomes a clonal thicket. Excellent for holding banks; a nuisance in a small border.
- Fruit description
- Small clusters of red drupes 5–7 mm across, densely covered in short hairs and sticky to the touch, ripening in late summer; sour and lemon-scented, edible the same way as the larger sumacs though the crop is far smaller.
- Propagation
- Root cuttings and division of suckers in early spring are much the easiest routes and come true. Seed has a hard coat needing scarification (hot water or acid) followed by cold stratification, and germinates erratically without it.
- Pollination
- Dioecious/polygamous — usually needs male + female
The edible parts listed above are a starting point, not a field guide. Identify a plant with certainty — ideally against a local authority — before eating any part of it, and read the full disclaimer. Spotted something wrong? Report it.
Growing guide
Fertilizing. Minimal feeding needed — thrives in poor, lean soils and rarely benefits from fertilizer; a balanced slow-release feed in spring is only worthwhile if a plant looks weak or lacks vigor.
How it spreads. Colonizes by root suckering and by stems rooting where they touch soil, gradually forming thickets; slower to sucker than the larger sumacs, but remove unwanted suckers to keep it from spreading beyond its space.
Growing tips. Essentially pest- and disease-free with good drought and salt tolerance once established; propagates easily from suckers or rooted stems; its colonizing habit makes it useful for stabilizing banks and slopes.
Grow journal
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