SC - More Apicius

[Dottie Elliott]

Just for general information:
(and this goes at least for Michigan)
There are four common genera of "sumac."  Rhus typhina (staghorn), Rhus
glabra (smooth sumac), and Rhus aromatica (fragrant sumac) are all fine to
use in food.  For teas they need to be strained, elsewise the pubesence on
the fruit will cause lacerations to the throat (supposedly), but it should
be noted that glabra does NOT have pubesence on the stems.  Toxicodenron
vernix (poison sumac) actually doesn't look a lot like a sumac, and it
also has a smooth stem.  It looks different, in fact, here are the
descriptions from Herb Wagner and Burt Barnes "Michigan Trees" and Soper
and Heimburger's "Shrubs of Ontario":

Rhus Glabra and Rhus typhina have alternate pinnately compound leaflets
with 13-15 leaflets, of ovate shape.  The furry, red berries in Glabra
droop, whilst the fruits of typhina stand erect.  Rhus aromatica has three
leaflets, and they look sort of Box-eleder (or poison ivy) like.  They
also have red furry berries.  The one to look out for is Rhus radicans
(also known as toxicodenron vernix) which has similar leaves, to the
aromatica, however the berries are glabrous (without hair) and are WHITE.
Avoid this one at all costs.  It is rather nasty, as one student in my
dendrology course misidentifies it, and was scratching and sniffing the
bark for identification clues.  It was a rather nasty mess.

hope this helps,
Bogdan

On Wed, 4 Mar 1998, LrdRas wrote:

> In a message dated 3/4/98 4:38:11 PM Eastern Standard Time, JSchl65101 at aol.com
> writes:
> 
> << I'd be surprised to find sumac _isn't_ period,  >>
> 
>  Sumac is definitely period and is used in many Middle Eastern recipes. As
> noted by another poster the Staghorn Sumac is the likely candidate. It has red
> berries and a hairy stem. Poison sumac has smooth bark. Once you have seen the
> 2 individually it is impossible to confuse the two types.
> 
> Ras
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