Smooth sumac

Sumac is very decorative and unusual for our flora with its large odd-pinnate foliage, giving the impression of a "palm-like" exotic. Its ornamental forms are especially striking. It deserves wide use in landscaping as solitary and group plantings, for dressing rock gardens and stabilizing soils prone to wind and water erosion. The scarlet autumn leaf color, which adorns the plant for a long time, creates a colorful spot in the garden-park landscape, enriching its autumn palette, especially against the background of dark coniferous plantings. Large, dense panicles with bright fruits decorate this graceful plant throughout the winter. In cultivation since 1602.

Appearance: In its native range it is a shrub or small tree, not exceeding in height 10 m. In cultivation a shrub up to 3 m with an umbrella-shaped crown; it flowers from late June to mid-July, sometimes a second time in September. Shoots are glabrous; when cut they exude a dense yellowish sap that gradually blackens and hardens.

Flowers: unisexual; female flowers (pistillate) are bright red, gathered in dense compact pyramidal panicles up to 20 cm long; male flowers (staminate) are yellowish-white in looser panicles.

Fruits: globose, slightly flattened drupes covered with red bristly pubescence; they ripen in September and persist throughout the winter. The plant flowers and fruits from 6 years of age.

Leaves: very decorative, compound, consisting of 11–13 lanceolate leaflets up to 12 cm long; the overall leaf length reaches 50 cm. Leaflets are pointed with serrated margins, dark green above and bluish beneath, pubescent when young. Leaves are especially beautiful in autumn when they turn bright carmine and orange.

Requirements: sun; tolerant of high temperatures, not winter-hardy, wind-resistant, suitable for urban conditions.

Soils: from dry to moist, on any well-drained, relatively fertile substrates, from acidic to alkaline.

Zone: 6a