Rhus aromatica (fragrant sumac)

Plate 1 figs. a–h

Rhus aromatica, photographed by Carol Ann McCormick — fig. a Carol Ann McCormick, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-05 / obs. 203585374

Rhus aromatica, photographed by Craig Martin — fig. b Craig Martin, CC0 1.0 / obs. 203712336

Rhus aromatica, photographed by Michelle Norcéide — fig. c Michelle Norcéide, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 202826073

Rhus aromatica, photographed by Terri Koontz — fig. d Terri Koontz, CC0 1.0 / obs. 203011174

Rhus aromatica, photographed by Thomas Koffel — fig. e Thomas Koffel, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 204294351

Rhus aromatica, photographed by Dan Horowitz — fig. f Dan Horowitz, CC0 1.0 / obs. 201996059

Rhus aromatica, photographed by Michelle W. （鍾偉瑋） — fig. g Michelle W. （鍾偉瑋）, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 199914825

Rhus aromatica, photographed by Susan Berry — fig. h Susan Berry, CC0 1.0 / obs. 202508856

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Confused withby our own model

These are not lookalikes we guessed at. Each one is a species our identification model genuinely mistook for this plant, and how many times. The error rate is published.

Rhus trilobatathis one called it 8x compare

Flowering n = 1,059 observations

225

358

427

Flowering observations of Rhus aromatica by month
Month	Observations
Jan	0
Feb	12
Mar	225
Apr	358
May	427
Jun	24
Jul	5
Aug	3
Sep	3
Oct	1
Nov	0
Dec	1

Peak flowering in May, from 1,059 community-annotated observations worldwide. This is a global aggregate, not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres, and citizen-science records cluster near cities, at weekends, and in spring. Where a species has fewer than 30 annotated records we do not draw this chart at all.

Also published as 40 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

Cotinus arenaria (Wierzb. ex Engl.) F.A.Barkley
Lobadium amentaceum Raf.
Lobadium aromaticum (Ait.) Sweet
Lobadium crenatum (Mill.) F.A.Barkley
Lobadium fetidum Raf.
Lobadium suaveolens Raf.
Lobadium trifoliatum Raf.
Myrica trifoliolata DC.
Rhus arenaria (Greene) G.N.Jones
Rhus aromatica subsp. serotina (Greene) R.E.Brooks
Rhus aromatica var. arenaria (Greene) Fernald
Rhus aromatica var. glabra Engl.
Rhus aromatica var. illinoensis (Greene) Rehder
Rhus aromatica var. suaveolens (Aiton) H.Jaeger & Beissn.
Rhus canadensis Marshall
Rhus canadensis var. illinoensis (Greene) Fernald
Rhus canadensis var. serotina (Greene) E.J.Palmer & Steyerm.
Rhus illinoensis (Greene) Ashe
Rhus illinoensis var. formosa (Greene) Ashe
Rhus nortonii (Greene) Rydb.
Rhus suaveolens Aiton
Rhus trilobata var. arenaria (Greene) F.A.Barkley
Rhus trilobata var. serotina (Greene) F.A.Barkley
Schmaltzia anomala Greene

and 16 more.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice, no toxicity claim and no native range, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.