Week 40: Staghorn Sumac (Cole Swanson, Katherine Lee Bates, J. Francis Macbride)

Fig. 1. Emil Carlsen. Staghorn Sumac (1883). Privately held.

First Quarter Moon; 14 Days to Autumn Cross-Quarter

Headnote#

Is it a bush? Is it a tree? Is it a poison? Is it lemonade? In the lower gaps of the forest, or in its damaged peripheries, the sumac thrives. Like the pawpaw, it often spreads through root suckers, producing a grove of clones in meadow edges, riverbanks, or cleared land. Its conical flowers and then spike-like berry clusters develop over the summer, and its leaves erupt into vibrant colors in the early fall. The plant’s leaves and bark contain tannins that were used for centuries, around the world, to tan light and flexible leathers and as a mordant to dye fabrics. In North America, the berries were steeped to produce a brilliant pink, slightly acidic tea comparable to lemonade. And after falling out of favor in European cuisines, the tart, peppery flavor profile persisted in the Middle East and is now poised for a global comeback.

The sumac genus (Rhus) contains somewhere between 35 and 100+ species, depending on who’s counting—47 is an officially recognized number—with roughly 20 species native to North America. Sumac plants can be found in temperate regions around the globe, although the genus may have originated in western North America (the oldest known fossils come from Washington State). The sumac genus lends its common name to the broader sumac family (Anacardiaceae), perhaps more commonly known as the cashew family, which contains approximately 80 genera and 850+ species, including those that grow mangos, cashews, pistachios, and marulas. So-called poison sumac (Toxicodendron vernix), which I for some reason vaguely feared as a child, is in a separate genus within that larger family, along with poisons oak and ivy. These species all produce the highly inflammatory resin, urushiol, known for occasionally causing “mango mouth” and for harming the people—many of them women, children, and forced laborers—who process cashews. But of course, because botany makes so much sense, the true sumacs for which the plant family is known do not produce urushiol.

Both the common and Latin names have interesting etymologies. The descriptor “staghorn” is mostly transparent. It was adopted by English settlers in North America to distinguish the plant’s fuzzy, forking branches from its smoother brethren, such as the aptly named smooth sumac (Rhus glabra). This association with horns was formalized in the 1750s, when Carl Linnaeus and his student, Ericus Torner, identified the plant as Ramis hirtis uti typhi cervini(“with branches hairy like antlers in velvet"). The word “sumac” has an even longer history, descending from Arabic (summaq) and Classical Syriac/Aramaic (summāqā) words for “dark red,” which were absorbed into Medieval Latin and Old French around the 13th century. Though the word first referred specifically to the chopped berries of the plants, its meaning later expanded to include other parts of the plant used for tanning leather, dyeing textiles, or as a medicinal astringent. Finally, by the mid-1540s, it was applied to the living plants themselves.

As for the Latin, the name of the “Rhus” genus comes from the classical Latin and Greek names for sumac plants, notably Sicilian or tanner’s sumac (Rhus coriaria), known for its leather-tanning and dyeing properties. The typhina descriptor for staghorn sumac also was supplied by Linnaeus and Torner, in their comparison of the plant to the hairy antlers of a male deer (typhi cervini)—although, that description itself may itself echo the cattail (typha), another plant named for its fuzzy spike. Some might see this as a muddle of language and taxonomy. But that muddle embodies the fuzzy perceptions and tangled analogies that have built our basic picture of the world around us.

Fig. 2. “Rhus Typhina.” Plate LXVIII from Lorin L. Dame and Henry Brooks. Handbook of the Trees of New England. Boston: Ginn & Company, 1902.

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Readings#

1. In late Spring 2023, Metrolinx crews exposed swaths of land along the Railpath to non-specific chemical herbicide to control the incredible spread of dog-strangling vine (Metrolinx 2023). Regardless of species, all vegetal and terra-bound life, including the staghorns, were exposed to the poison. The West Toronto Railpath sumacs teach us that nativist prescriptions are limited in predetermining how or when flourishing and suffering occurs in multispecies life. Perhaps because they thrive in the ditches of highways and rail corridors – the same disturbed spaces colonised by their invasive companions – or because they resist neat vegetal categories situated within taxonomical hierarchies (a small tree? a large bush?), the native sumacs of the Railpath duly suffer alongside their non-native kin, as well as the countless species-assemblages who remain hidden beyond the settler-gaze.

Cole Swanson. “Among the Drupes (Elegy for a Wasteland)”. Plant Perspectives (February 2025).#

2. Summer fervors slacken;

   Sumac torches dim;

   There’s bronze upon the bracken;

   September has a whim

   For carmine, pearl and amber

   Touches on her green;

   Busy squirrels clamber;

   Restless birds convene.

   Where Indian pipe still blanches,

   Where hoary lichen flakes

   Forest trunks and branches,

   The golden foxglove makes

   A mimic wood that tosses

   Warning to the trees,

   Then droops upon the mosses,

   Heavy with bloom and bees.

Katherine Lee Bates. From “Playmates.” The Retinue and Other Poems. New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1918. 122-123.#

3. The Sumach, especially in the fall, is a thing of beauty with its handsome pinnately divided foliage and large red bunches of fruit at the ends of the branches. Two noteworthy species are the Smooth Sumach and the Staghorn, the latter with very velvety-hairy stalks and branches.
   
   The Poison Sumach of swamps, dangerous to touch, may easily be distinguished from the harmless kinds. Both its flowers and fruits, the latter grayish, are very loosely borne on long slender branching stalks.

J. Francis Macbride. “Sumach (Rhus species).” From Autumn Fruits and Flowers. Botany Leaflet 10. Chicago, Illinois: Field Museum, 1924. 12.#

Supplementum#

• Ceyhun Uçuk and Charles Spence. “Sumac (Rhus coriaria): The magical spice.” International Journal of Gastronomy and Food Science 44 (June 2026).

• Northeast Plant Materials Program. “Plant Fact Sheet: STAGHORN SUMAC - Rhus hirta (L.) Sudworth.” USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (February 5, 2002).

• Fiona von Gray. “A Guide to the Sumacs (Rhus).” Woodlanders (July 13, 2026).

• Paula J Vester. “Mordant Monday: Spotlight on Sumac.” Botanical Colors (April 28, 2024).

• Yale Nature Walk. “Staghorn Sumac.” Yale University (February 23, 2021).

Fig. 3. F.H. Varley. “Flower of the Staghorn Sumach” (n.d.) Charcoal on paper. 25.0cm x 9.4cm. Collection of the Varley Art Gallery of Markham

Fig. 4. “Rhus typhina L.” (1966). Botanical Research Institute of Texas, Philecology Herbarium.

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✦ From the Earthly Book of Hours ✦#

• Since I’ve finally straightened out some of the data architecture on the back end, I’m hoping to finally add some images and readings to the site’s weather service. You can share your location to “look outside” at the current conditions, or—for anyone who has supported the project—choose your own conditions. (Still figuring out the private access route!)