Sumac

I had to take a brief hiatus from Our Trees, but will return to our regular stories tomorrow. We will be especially focused on trees in a changing climate.

One of our most beautiful small trees is staghorn sumac, Rhus typhina*. It forms large clonal stands in woodland edges. It is certainly one of our most attractive trees, especially now when it is in fruit.

Staghorn sumac, Rhus typhina, with ripe red fruits. Photo by Tom Kimmerer

The clusters of bright red fruits remain on the trees all winter, providing an important food source for wintering birds. Many people make a delicious drink, tasting like lemonade, from the ripe fruit clusters.

There is a mystery about sumac. The ground fruit is a delicious spice, used in many cuisines especially in the Mediterranean. You can buy ground sumac in most stores that carry may spices, and recipes are easy to find. It is an important ingredient in za’atar. As far as I can tell, all the sumac commercially available as a spice comes from Europe and the Middle East, and is harvested from the shrub Rhus coriaria. It seems to me that an enterprising person could harvest the abundant fruits of Rhus typhina and process them into the spice. Sumac is easy to plant and bears abundant fruit with little maintenance. If we consider the rapid growth in popularity of pawpaw in recent years, it is not hard to envision similar growth in sumac production.

*Both the common name staghorn and the specific epithet typhina refer to the resemblance of the branches covered in dense hairs to the antlers of deer.