Sumac
Parts Usually Used
Root bark, leaves, and berries
Description of Plant(s) and Culture
A small tree or shrub with thick branches and smooth gray bark. It has large, deciduous, compound leaves with 11-31 sawtoothed, hairless leaflets. Dense cone-shaped clusters of whitish male and female flowers grow on separate plants. Fruits are dark red, fuzzy berries in similar dense clusters. Another variety: The Chinese sumac (Rhus semialata) is called Yen-fu-tzu.
Where Found
Found along roadsides and in waste land, abandoned fields and grasslands, woodland margins and clearings. Eastern United States into southern Canada and west to the prairies and the Rockies.
Medicinal Properties
Bark and leaves: astringent, antiseptic, alterative, tonic Berries: refrigerant, diuretic, emmenagogue, diaphoretic, cephalic
Biochemical Information
Malic and acid calcium malate with tannic and gallic acids, fixed and a small amount of volatile oils
Legends, Myths and Stories
Native Americans used the split bark and stems in basket-making and the roots for a yellow dye. Also the pipe-stem was made with sumac, a sumac that grows close to the pipestone quarry. This stem is about 24 inches long and an inch wide, but quite thick, flat like a carpenter’s pencil. They gathered the sumac in the spring when the sap was up in the large pith. Some meat or fish was put out where blowflies could work on it.
When large maggots were on the meat, the piece of sumac which had previously been put in a can of oil or bear grease, was brought in. As the large pith had taken up the oil, it was soft, and quite a bit was dug out. The maggots were then sealed up in the stem, to either eat their way through, or die. Sometimes they did both, but there was plenty of time to do it all over again, patiently, until a long perfect hole was drilled through.
Then the finishing touches could be applied to the pipe. When the leaves turn red in the fall, the Native Americans would gather and dry them to use in tobacco mixtures for the pipes. Toxicodendron vernix, the poison sumac, is the only moisture loving species and should be avoided.
Uses
Historically, herbalists utilized the root bark for diarrhea, restless fever, and profuse perspiration associated with debility. It was also prepared as a douche for prolapsed uterus, kidney and bladder complaints, and hemorrhoids, or used as a mouthwash for sore and bleeding gums. Traditional external preparations combined the root bark with white pine and slippery elm barks to apply to old sores, canker sores, wounds, and ulcers.
The berries were infused as a beverage and traditionally administered for bowel complaints, strangury, and febrile conditions, as well as applied externally for ringworm, tetters, and ulcers.
Warning
Care should be taken to identify Sumac correctly. Other varieties of Rhus can be very toxic (poison ivy and poison oak). Sumacs with smooth white berries, toothless leaves, and (usually) grows in or near swamps are poisonous. Poison Sumacs may cause allergic skin reactions in sensitive people. Free use of the bark of Sumac will produce catharsis.
Bibliography
Eastern/Central Medicinal Plants , by Steven Foster and James A. , Loma Linda, CA 92354, Original copyright 1939, revised edition 1994 Old Ways Rediscovered , by Clarence Meyer, Meyerbooks, publisher, PO Box 427, Glenwood, Illinois 60425, published from 1954, print 1988 Indian Uses of Native Plants , by Edith Van Allen Murphey, Meyerbooks, publisher, PO Box 427, Glenwood, Illinois 60425, copyright 1958, print 1990 Chinese Medicinal Herbs , compiled by Shih-Chen Li, Georgetown Press, San Francisco, California, 1973.
, Lotus Press, PO Box 325, Twin Lakes. , Copyright 1988, published 1992 The Complete Medicinal Herbal , by Penelope Ody, Dorling Kindersley, Inc, 232 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, First American Edition, copyright 1993 Indian Herbalogy of North America , by Alma R. , 180 Varick Street, New York, NY 10014, first printed by the United States Government Printing Office, Washington, in 1928, this Dover edition 1974 The Yoga of Herbs: An Ayurvedic Guide to Herbal Medicine , by Dr.
David Frawley & Dr. Vasant Lad, Lotus Press, Twin Lakes, Wisconsin, Second edition, 1988. An Instant Guide to Medicinal Plants , by Pamela Forey and Ruth Lindsay, Crescent Books (January 27, 1992). The Rodale Herb Book: How to Use, Grow, and Buy Nature’s Miracle Plants (An Organic gardening and farming book) , edited by William H. Hylton, Rodale Press, Inc. , 1974