Our tree of the week is the winged sumac (
Rhus copallina). This small tree is doing more than its fair-share in the
fall foliage game, and it's almost impossible to miss if you're walking
between Mickle Hall and the Student Union Building. The young tree has
an array of red, orange and green leaves, the red hues being amplified
by the remaining green leaves.
Rhus copallina has been represented in the arboretum since 1995. In the fall of 1994, Ed Leuck collected two plants in town, along south Line Avenue, and he planted them in the ground the following autumn. One plant grew marvelously for many years. You can see pictures of it
here. But this past spring, during a rain storm, the medium-sized tree unexpectedly fell over. Luckily, a clone of it remains. The small tree near the sidewalk popped up from the roots of the original tree approximately five years ago. Today it's providing marvelous color to the arboretum landscape and in years to come it will be providing much needed shade during the summer months.
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| This small, very colorful tree, is the arboretum's only winged sumac (Rhus copallina). It initially grew from the roots of an older tree which has since died; this specimen is approximately 5 years old. In years to come, it will provide much needed shade for this east-west walkway. The Mickle Hall auditorium is the brick structure pictured in the background, and you can see the campus greenhouse on top of the roof. |
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| Winged sumacs have large leaves that turn beautiful colors in the fall. So much color! |
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| There are still a few green leaves on the tree, and quite a few leaves are in the process of turning. The tree might be more stunning in this stage, while the red and green complementary colors are side-by-side, rather than when the tree has lost all of its greenness. |
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| Winged sumac leaves are pinnately compound. The leaf on the left is missing a leaflet: back in the spring it surely had 11. The leaf on the right has 13 leaflets. |
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| Underneath, the leaves are light green, considerably less stunning. |
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| The winged sumac gets its name from the midrib, which is lined with protruding flat 'wings'. |
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| For comparison, we have (partial) leaves from two different Rhus species. Rhus glabra is the mostly red leaf at the top of the photograph, and Rhus copallina is the multi-colored leaf at the bottom. |
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| Zooming in on the two different leaves, we see that the leaf stalk of R. glabra is thin and round. The R. copallina leaf stalk is flat and noticeably wider. This photo also shows that the leaflets differ: the leaf margins of R. glabra are toothed, while the leaf margins of R. copallina are smooth. |
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| The branch bark is a silvery gray. |
You can see old pictures of the arboretum's recently deceased winged sumac
here.
For more information about this species consult the following:
United States Department of Agriculture
Louisiana Plant Identification and Interactive Virtual Tours (LSU AgCenter)
University of Florida (IFAS Extension)
