Smooth Sumac

Smooth Sumac -  Rhus glabra

Smooth Sumac is a beautiful choice of a shrub to add lots of color to your lawn or garden. The colony-forming shrub has attractive branches and smooth fern-like leaves. The leaves can grow up to 18” in length and turn a striking bright orange or orange-red color during the fall season. Flowers on the Smooth Sumac are tiny and yellowish-green in intensity during the spring. These flowers burst into crimson berries in the autumn and are edible to birds and wildlife. In fact, some wildlife depends on them to get through the winter. It is also the only shrub native to all 48 continental states in the U.S.

The Smooth Sumac is a shrub/tree that grows the most in the summer and spring months. It also blooms mid-spring and produces seed and fruit in the summer and continues into the fall months. It can be pruned to remain as a shrub, or it can grow into a tree. It produces hairless branches that are waxy. It also creates leaflets that taper to a point, and its flowers have a green hue. The drupes it produces are globe-shaped and covered in red hairs that are sticky. The seeds it produces are yellow and smooth.

Smooth Sumac is one of many varieties of sumac. Though tall, it is a shrub that often reaches about ten feet in height. Beautiful alternating leaves change to a gorgeous scarlet hue during the autumn months making the sumac a welcome addition to any landscape. During the warmer months, these shrubs will bear 3 to 5-inch clusters of greenish-yellow flowers that later give way to bright red berry clusters that provide your landscape interest and color even through the winter season. Sumac trees are easily maintained since they are small and hardy.
Smooth Sumac has gorgeous foliage in the summer and autumn
This shrub is very well known for its ornamental look. They will create a beautiful screen if you grow them nearby of one another and in turn, will attract many bird and animal species who seek it for shelter and food. Most commonly the sumac is used in landscaping as an ornamental focal point since the sumac will bring a variety of color to enhance your yard.