''Rhus aromatica'', the fragrant sumac, is a

deciduous In the fields of horticulture and Botany, the term ''deciduous'' () means "falling off at maturity" and "tending to fall off", in reference to trees and shrubs that seasonally shed leaves, usually in the autumn; to the shedding of petals, aft ...

shrub in the family

Anacardiaceae The Anacardiaceae, commonly known as the cashew family or sumac family, are a family of flowering plants, including about 83 genera with about 860 known species. Members of the Anacardiaceae bear fruits that are drupes and in some cases produce ...

native to North America.(1)
(2) It is found in southern

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

(Alberta to Quebec) and nearly all of the

lower 48 states The contiguous United States (officially the conterminous United States) consists of the 48 adjoining U.S. states and the Federal District of the United States of America. The term excludes the only two non-contiguous states, Alaska and Hawaii ...

except peninsular Florida. Fragrant sumac is a woody plant with a rounded form that grows to around to tall and to wide. The plant develops yellow flowers in clusters on short lateral shoots in March through May. The flower is a small, dense

inflorescence An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed o ...

that usually opens before the plant's leaves do. The species is

polygamodioecious Plant reproductive morphology is the study of the physical form and structure (the morphology) of those parts of plants directly or indirectly concerned with sexual reproduction. Among all living organisms, flowers, which are the reproductive st ...

(mostly

dioecious Dioecy (; ; adj. dioecious , ) is a characteristic of a species, meaning that it has distinct individual organisms (unisexual) that produce male or female gametes, either directly (in animals) or indirectly (in seed plants). Dioecious reproductio ...

, primarily bearing flowers of only one sex, but with either a few flowers of the opposite sex or a few bisexual flowers on the same plant). Male (

staminate The stamen (plural ''stamina'' or ''stamens'') is the pollen-producing reproductive organ of a flower. Collectively the stamens form the androecium., p. 10 Morphology and terminology A stamen typically consists of a stalk called the filam ...

) flowers develop in yellowish

catkin A catkin or ament is a slim, cylindrical flower cluster (a spike), with inconspicuous or no petals, usually wind-pollinated (anemophilous) but sometimes insect-pollinated (as in ''Salix''). They contain many, usually unisexual flowers, arranged cl ...

s, while female (

pistillate Gynoecium (; ) is most commonly used as a collective term for the parts of a flower that produce ovules and ultimately develop into the fruit and seeds. The gynoecium is the innermost whorl of a flower; it consists of (one or more) ''pistils'' ...

) flowers develop in short bright yellow

panicle A panicle is a much-branched inflorescence. (softcover ). Some authors distinguish it from a compound spike inflorescence, by requiring that the flowers (and fruit) be pedicellate (having a single stem per flower). The branches of a panicle are of ...

s at the ends of branches. Pollinated flowers develop clusters of to hairy red

drupes In botany, a drupe (or stone fruit) is an indehiscent fruit in which an outer fleshy part (exocarp, or skin, and mesocarp, or flesh) surrounds a single shell (the ''pit'', ''stone'', or '' pyrena'') of hardened endocarp with a seed (''kernel'') ...

containing a single nutlet during June through August. The fruits become an important winter food for birds and small mammals that can remain on the plant until spring if not eaten. The plant's alternate compound leaves have three leaflets that vary in shape, lobing, and margination. The unstalked leaflets are

ovate Ovate may refer to: *Ovate (egg-shaped) leaves, tepals, or other botanical parts *Ovate, a type of prehistoric stone hand axe *Ovates, one of three ranks of membership in the Welsh Gorsedd *Vates In modern English, the nouns vates () and ovat ...

rhomboid Traditionally, in two-dimensional geometry, a rhomboid is a parallelogram in which adjacent sides are of unequal lengths and angles are non-right angled. A parallelogram with sides of equal length (equilateral) is a rhombus but not a rhomboid. ...

, more or less wedge-shaped at the base, coarsely-toothed and usually shiny

glabrous Glabrousness (from the Latin ''glaber'' meaning "bald", "hairless", "shaved", "smooth") is the technical term for a lack of hair, down, setae, trichomes or other such covering. A glabrous surface may be a natural characteristic of all or part of ...

above. The terminal leaflet is to long. Fragrant sumac's three-leafleted lobed leaves resemble those of its relative, poison ivy (

Toxicodendron radicans ''Toxicodendron radicans'', commonly known as eastern poison ivy or poison ivy, is an allergenic Asian and Eastern North American flowering plant in the genus ''Toxicodendron''. The species is well known for causing urushiol-induced contact derm ...

). However, poison ivy's central leaflet has a stem, whereas fragrant sumac's does not. The plant's green to glossy blue-green summer foliage becomes orange to red or purple in the fall. Stems are thin and brownish-gray, with rust-colored

lenticel A lenticel is a porous tissue consisting of cells with large intercellular spaces in the periderm of the secondarily thickened organs and the bark of woody stems and roots of dicotyledonous flowering plants. It functions as a pore, providing a ...

s when young. Leaves and stems emit a lemon scent when crushed. There are no terminal buds, but overwintering male catkins are present. Fragrant sumac is common along the forested eastern margins of the Great Plains and in open or otherwise disturbed sites on the margins of the Gulf Coast prairie. It grows at a range of sites including open rocky woodlands, valley bottoms, lower rocky slopes, and roadsides. It is not widely used for landscape plantings but is often used as a ground cover, especially on banks. The plant's colorful fall foliage is its main ornamental feature. The plant grows in full deep shade to full sun and well-drained soils slightly acid to well alkaline with a pH range of about 6.0 to 8.5. It has a shallow, fibrous root system and is easily transplanted. Some of its branches can trail upon the ground and develop roots. The plant can ground sucker to form a colony. File:Rhus aromatica 12zz.jpg, Spread File:Rhus aromatica kz12.jpg, Foliage File:Rhus aromatica kz1.JPG, Pistillate inflorescence File:Rhus aromatica 2016-07-19 3281.jpg, Fruit

Conservation status in the United States

It is listed as of special concern and believed

extirpated Local extinction, also known as extirpation, refers to a species (or other taxon) of plant or animal that ceases to exist in a chosen geographic area of study, though it still exists elsewhere. Local extinctions are contrasted with global extinct ...

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...

. However, this status applies only to native populations."Connecticut's Endangered, Threatened and Special Concern Species 2015"
State of Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Bureau of Natural Resources. Retrieved 28 January 2018. (Note: This list is newer than the one used by plants.usda.gov and is more up-to-date.) In Washington, Connecticut, and New Hampshire it is considered introduced.

References

External links

* http://www.missouribotanicalgarden.org/PlantFinder/PlantFinderDetails.aspx?kempercode=f180 {{Taxonbar, from=Q62864 aromatica