Lots of folks are out and about this time of year, admiring the changing leaves and all their colors. I suggest instead of looking up at the leaves to look down along the roadsides where there is even more beauty. One of the most stunning plants growing wild beside our roads is sumac. The most common is Smooth Sumac and the colorations range from blaze orange to a deep burgundy. The plant, a tree really, grows in clusters. How does it get alongside the roads? Birds, mostly. Birds eat the sumac seeds and poop then here and there and the prolific plant quickly takes root.
There are numerous varieties of sumac. Beside the Smooth Sumac, theAnacardiaceae family includes Staghorn Sumac, Shining Sumac and, of course, Poison Sumac.
Smooth Sumac trees or shrubs rarely exceed 10 or 12 feet and the mature and bear fruit at age three. Many of the highway sumacs don’t bear fruit because VDOT whacks them down.
I remember hunting quail and sometimes finding them in the thick stands of sumac which they used for both food and cover, but those days are long gone, Quail, that is, not sumac.
Some folks plant sumac as cover for wildlife. One year old nursery grown seedlings are used for planting large areas. Once established, stands will spread from the root sprouts. The lateral root system is extensive and spread outward 3 or more feet a year. This sprouting is encouraged by cutting or fire injury. The colonies appear to lose vigor in about 15 years.
Sumac is a most interesting plant and one unequaled in beauty.