Rhus trilobata
species of plant
Rhus trilobata is a North American shrub in the sumac genus (Rhus) with the common names skunkbush sumac, sourberry, skunkbush, and three-leaf sumac.
Description
The twigs are fuzzy when new, and turn sleek with age. The leaves are up to 1.5 centimetres (1⁄2 in) long and produce a very strong odour when crushed. The aroma is bitter and often disagreeable (earning the plant the name skunkbush). The leaves are green when new and turn orange and brown in the fall.
The flowers, borne on small catkins ("short shoots"), are yellowish-green and pollinated by animals. The plant yields hairy and slightly sticky reddish-orange berries which have an aroma similar to limes and a very sour taste. The acidity comes from tannic and gallic acids. The seeds are dispersed by animals that eat the berries. The shrub also reproduces vegetatively, sending up sprouts several meters away and forming thickets.
“Rhus trilobata” enters the record as species of plant. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Rhus, trilobata and species can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Rhus trilobata” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Rhus, trilobata and species provides the most credible route into that argument.
The date and method of observation matter as much as the stated conclusion, especially where classification or consensus has changed. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7155056. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Rhus trilobata” 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.