Staghorn Sumac

Rhus typhina

Staghorn sumac is a native Northeast shrub recognizable by its velvet-covered young branches and upright clusters of deep red fruit. The fruit’s tart surface gives it its food interest.¹

The red fruit clusters persist into winter and are not the same thing as the white berries of poisonous sumac, a different plant associated with wet habitats.¹

Staghorn sumac is among the native Maine shrubs documented by UMaine Extension; identification remains essential when gathering any wild food plant.¹

The “staghorn” clue is the dense hair on young branchlets and leaf stalks. New England’s botanical flora records the species—also published as Rhus hirta—in all six states, especially along roadsides, forest edges, and dry fields.²

The food is the coating on the upright fruit clusters rather than a juicy berry in the usual sense. Botanically, each small fruit is a dry drupe with a firm inner wall around one seed, covered by red hairs that carry the tart flavor.³ Gently steeped in cool water, ripe clusters make the bright, lemon-like drink often called sumac-ade or rhus juice. Wabanaki plant records also describe the fruit as a beverage ingredient, placing this familiar roadside shrub within a living Northeast food tradition rather than treating it only as a wild novelty.⁴