Rhus lanceolata
species of plant

Rhus lanceolata, the prairie sumac, is a species of plant native to the south-western United States (Texas, Oklahoma, Arizona, New Mexico), and northern Mexico (Coahuila, Nuevo León and Tamaulipas).
Rhus lanceolata is a shrub or small tree up to 9 m (30 feet) tall, reproducing by means of underground rhizomes. Leaves are pinnately compound with 13-17 lanceolate leaflets and a winged rachis. Leaflets are entire (untoothed) or with small teeth, green and shiny above but whitish and pubescent below. Flowers are born in a panicle up to 14 cm (5.6 inches) tall. Flowers are white to greenish. Fruits are lens-shaped, about 6 mm (0.25 inches) across, dark red and hairy.
Uses
Birds eat the fruit during the winter, and deer forage the foliage. The tannin-containing leaves have been used to tan leather.
“Rhus lanceolata” enters the record as species of plant. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Rhus, lanceolata and species can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Rhus lanceolata” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Rhus, lanceolata and species provides the most credible route into that argument.
Stable identifiers, scientific names and standards terminology offer the best bridge between this overview and specialist evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 15, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q15545721. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Rhus lanceolata” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.