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Originally Posted by Acajack
It's interesting how to the uninitiated or non-horticultural among us, the presence of sumac trees in he summer can give a pseudo-tropical feel to northern climes where you wouldn't expect it.
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I've always liked the look of sumac trees too. Sometimes they're purposely grown as garden plants but you'll also see them scattered around all kinds of places, in the margins of neighborhoods, by roadsides, parking lots, and in parks and forest edges.
Sumac fruit in powdered form as a spice is used in Middle Eastern cuisines -- one of the Mediterranean/southern European species of sumac is used as one of the ingredients in za'atar spice mix. Native peoples in North America also consumed the berries of some edible sumac species -- those of the staghorn sumac found in Ontario and Quebec, and the northeast US can be ground, strained and used to make syrup for a pink lemonade. Though on the other hand, there's also a species of sumac, the poison sumac in North America that's toxic and causes rashes (more so than even poison ivy) found in wet swampy soil.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Acajack
(They're also gorgeous fire engine red in the autumn.)
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The word 'sumac' traces its etymology from Old French sumac (13th century), from Mediaeval Latin sumach, from Arabic summāq (سماق), from Syriac summāq (ܣܡܘܩ)- meaning "red".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumac#Etymology