Fragrant Sumac Buds

The delicate flowers of the fragrant sumac provide nectar for bees and other beneficial insects.

Fragrant sumac buds. Its compound leaves with three leaflets loosely resemble those of its cousin poison ivy but this plant is not poisonous. This large shrub has compound leaves meaning each leaf is composed of several leaflets. Its native habitats are more common in western new england. Populations farther east are considered introduced.

Fragrant sumac is a low growing shrub 4 feet or 1 2 m tall which forms thickets in glades and on rocky balds. A small rounded spreading shrub which forms a dense thicket of stems. Height is 2 to 5 feet tall and 5 to 10 feet wide. Smooth sumac rhus glabra is definitely smooth on the twigs and the many leaflets are untoothed.

The leaf stems have a nice blush of purple on them. It is a trailing rooting and colonizing ground cover. Fragrant sumac rhus aromatica is a little different in appearance as it only has three leaflets to its compound leaves where the other sumacs have many more leaflets like 9 to 31 leaflets. It forms low mounds of lustrous foliage that usually do not exceed 2 with a spread to 8 wide.

It is a female form that forms red fruits. Green globe a larger growing cultivar this plant can reach 6 and forms a dense rounded plant. Rhus aromatica commonly called fragrant sumac is actually a deciduous missouri native shrub belonging to sumac family anacardiaceae. Konza is another dwarf form to 2 tall.

It can also be found in southern canada alberta to quebec and nearly all of the lower 48 states except peninsular florida.