Unknown plant

I just got back from south Texas. I was in a field between San Antonio and Corpus Christi, digging up some dewberries for transplant, when I saw some interesting shrubs. They were about 3 feet tall, with very small red berries. I dug up a small seedling to bring home, but haven't found anything that looks like it in any of my books. My mother in law doesn't know what it is, but says that it was one of the few plants that survived a freakish deep freeze a number of years back, so I have some hope it would survive in Dallas. I'm attaching a picture. Does anyone have any idea what this is? Is it a weed or a keeper? :)

Dennis

Dennis, I think I just took a couple of photos of this plant, but I haven't started a search for its ID yet. Did the berries look like this?

Maybe someone will recognize it if the berries are the same. Here is the photo I took of the leaves.

That could be it. There were only a few berries left on one of the bushes - I think the birds had beat me to it. II didn't have my camera with me. Anyone know what it is?

I think it might be Fragrant Sumac,
http://www.npot.org/index.php?typeIN=&colorIN=&find=rhus+aromatica&search_by=name
Josephine.

Yes, Josephine. I have been researching it and I think that we are close. I was pretty sure that this is what it is until I checked the distribution maps. They do not show it being in counties near San Antonio where I found my plant or between San Antonio and Corpus Christie where Dennis found his plant. I will keep searching for more information. By the way I have been using your search engine a lot to narrow IDs down. I think that I will go crush some leaves tomorrow to see if they have an odor. Hapily as I was searching for this plant, I found the ID of another plant that I thought would probably have me searching for days for its ID.

This message was edited May 8, 2007 12:53 AM

Great Hazel, you are so good at it.

Probably Skunkbush Rhus trilobata. The leaves are very similar to R. aromatica. http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/ornamentals/nativeshrubs/rhustrilob.htm

Here is the distribution for this one. http://plants.usda.gov/java/county?state_name=Texas&statefips=48&symbol=RHTR It is shown in Bexar county and counties to the North, East, and West so I don't think it's a stretch that it would now be south of there too.

It really looks like skunkbush is the winner. Thanks for all the help! I think I will plant it at the end of the woods behind my house.

Dennis

I went back to the plant I had photographed to smush some leaves. They were not very smelly. When I smushed them and then put them up to my nose, I could taste a strange flavor. I asked my husband to smell some more smushed leaves when I arrived back at home. He aldo tasted a strange flavor. The chemicals must be pretty potent in them or the rainy weather has caused the plant to have increased potency. The berries on the plant I have been inspecting here do not have hairs on them. My plant is probably not skunkbush. So I am back to looking for an ID for mine. All I can say is that they are really nice looking shrubs.

Josephine, that link to the search engine is new to me. Thanks for the link. I'll have to spent some time getting acquainted with it.

Hazel, I became intrigued by this thread and looked for information on both Rhus aromatica and Rhus trilobata and came across an overload of information. They are so similar that they were both listed as R. aromatica. R. trilobata has 6 naturally ocurring varieties which can produce plants with intermediate characteristic when the boundries overlap much like Quercus virginiana and Quercus fusiformis do.
http://www.google.com/search?q=Rhus+trilobata&hl=en&start=10&sa=N
According to some information I found on R. trilobata, the species and one variety grow in Texas, mostly in the panhandle and west Texas. This first article mentions some differences between the two species. It also mentions the soils in which they are normally are found. R. aromatica prefer acidic soil and more moisture while R. trilobata prefers the drier soils.

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0007-196X%28196507%2917%3A3%3C286%3ASSAAPO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-P&size=LARGE&origin=JSTOR-enlargePage
This site mentions that the fruit of R. trilobata can have such sparse hairs that they rub off easily.

In looking through .edu websites, it seems that both R. aromatica and R. trilobata vary extensively in leaf shape. R. aromatica also has a number of varieties listed for it. This website shows the areas in Texas where each of R. aromatica's varieties is found:
http://www.csdl.tamu.edu/FLORA/cgi/msproj/shao/frame.pl?query=Rhus+aromatica&rform=list&type=boolean

I still haven't found exactly what differentiates the species. This is going to take some time. As for relying on smell, I find that the most unreliable of all. What is "lovely"(from one of the descriptions of R. aromatica) can be just foul to others. Going by the location maps can also be misleading. I have found many plants growing here that according to the location maps don't grow here. R. aromatica appears to have a larger range here in Texas. Judging from location where Dennis found his plant, it is probably R. aromatica, but of unknown variety. Where did you find your plant?

Very impressive research, Veronica, I admire your patience.

Well, at the risk of adding more confusion, there's this variety of Rhus aromatica that Dr. Vines put in his central Texas (Edwards Plateau) tree book, the only R. aromatica he covers there.
http://uvalde.tamu.edu/herbarium/rhar.htm
But Dr. Van Auken of UTSA. just identified the common local version as R. aromatica and left it at that. I'll leave it at that also. I have a few of them here. They look much like the pic that Hazel posted. No berries on mine right now. Ever handled the berries? Some sticky oily-feeling stuff on them. And BTW, has anyone ever seen this sumac?

Is that the Evergreen Sumac?
http://www.npot.org/index.php?typeIN=&colorIN=&find=rhus+virens&search_by=name

No, actually it's Littleleaf Sumac, Rhus microphylla
http://wildflower.utexas.edu/plants/result.php?id_plant=rhmi3
It wasn't uncommon years ago in the San Antonio area and certain other parts of Texas. I wonder, how many people have these sort of native plants in their yard? The native plants that residents of Texas grew up around a long time ago? Makes you think, doesn't it? Except for some rare exceptions (the natives that have made their way into the mainline nursery trade) almost nobody knows these plants exist.

The space between the leaflets are winged in Linda's photo. That leads me to think that it is R. microphylla.
http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/ornamentals/nativeshrubs/rhusmicrophyl.htm
http://uvalde.tamu.edu/herbarium/final/rhmi_lf.jpg

R, virens doesn't appear to have winged rachises.

http://www.sbs.utexas.edu/mbierner/bio406d/images/pics/ana/rhus_virens.htm

Wow, very impressive amounts of information. I found my plant in Bee County, to be precise.

Dennis

Veronica, thanks for all of your work. I found my sumac a couple of miles from my house in NW Bexar County. Evergreen sumac are about 1/4 mile from it. The soil is very limestoney and dry most of the time. The leaves have no odor as far as I can tell. However, I smoke so I do not have a good sense of smell. The fruit may have a few hairs and compared to other sumac fruit, they are small.

I too have found plants in my area that are not shown as being here on distribution maps. The USDA state distribution maps as well as the others depend upon people sending in data when they locate the plants in an area. Sooo, it is really sort of a guessing game at most. The maps provide a general area of a plant's habitat. I finally had to stop doing research today for a while because my eyes are bothering me and I have had a few migraines from the glare from the computer screen. This genus seems to have some hybridization between species as you said which makes it difficult to come up with an exact ID. I wish I could access the full HSTOR artcles because they really have a wealth of information ... just what I am usually looking for but can't access.

Linda, I have seen the littleleaf sumac in my area too. In 2004, I kept attempting to post a photo of the leaves and for some reason, the photo kept being rejected so I gave up. angele's photo is the best representation of its foliage in the PlantFiles.

http://davesgarden.com/pf/showimage/77485/

My photo of the littleleaf sumac fruit is below. It looks really large in the closeup. The leaves are small so the fruit appears large.


This message was edited May 9, 2007 8:16 PM

Evergreen sumac has very dark green, shiny leaves which are not shaped like Dennis and my new finds (new leaves are lighter green) and blooms in the late summer or fall. It as another lovely native shrub.
http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/55052/index.html


This message was edited May 9, 2007 8:42 PM