Rhus trilobataNutt.

Skunkbush Sumac

WFO wfo-0001049775 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h

Rhus trilobata, photographed by Amthinkia
fig. a Amthinkia, CC0 1.0 / 2022-06-07 / obs. 204258020
Rhus trilobata, photographed by mark-groeneveld
fig. b mark-groeneveld, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 200380427
Rhus trilobata, photographed by Harrison J Elkins
fig. c Harrison J Elkins, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 169224602
Rhus trilobata, photographed by Bobby McCabe
fig. d Bobby McCabe, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 162983535
Rhus trilobata, photographed by lejones417
fig. e lejones417, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 167822615
Rhus trilobata, photographed by Bobby McCabe
fig. f Bobby McCabe, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 158680849
Rhus trilobata, photographed by Timothy Kuhlman
fig. g Timothy Kuhlman, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 162532718
Rhus trilobata, photographed by Bobby McCabe
fig. h Bobby McCabe, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 155044533

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.

Flowering n = 151 observations

Peak flowering in Apr, from 151 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 57 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.

  • Rhus aromatica f. simplicifolia (Greene) W.A.Weber
  • Rhus aromatica subsp. flabelliformis (Shinners) R.E.Brooks
  • Rhus aromatica subsp. pilosissima (Engl.) W.A.Weber
  • Rhus aromatica subsp. trilobata (Nutt.) W.A.Weber
  • Rhus aromatica var. flabelliformis Shinners
  • Rhus aromatica var. mollis Ashe
  • Rhus aromatica var. pilosissima (Engl.) Shinners
  • Rhus aromatica var. simplicifolia (Greene) Cronquist
  • Rhus canadensis var. quinata (Jeps.) A.Gray
  • Rhus canadensis var. simplicifolia Greene
  • Rhus canadensis var. trilobata (Nutt.) A.Gray ex J.M.Coult.
  • Rhus crenatifolia Schltdl.
  • Rhus emoryi Wooton
  • Rhus osterhoutii Rydb.
  • Rhus oxyacanthoides (Greene) Rydb.
  • Rhus trilobata var. glaberrima Engl.
  • Rhus trilobata var. malacophylla (Greene) Munz
  • Rhus utahensis Goodd.
  • Schmaltzia affinis Greene
  • Schmaltzia anisophylla Greene
  • Schmaltzia bakeri Greene
  • Schmaltzia botryoides Greene
  • Schmaltzia cissodes Greene
  • Schmaltzia cognata Greene

and 33 more.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. 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.