Talk:Sumac

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Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment[edit]

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 15 September 2020 and 10 December 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Ellapoole. Peer reviewers: Bshore1999.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 10:25, 17 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment[edit]

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 20 January 2021 and 28 April 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Tigercloud.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 10:25, 17 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Ornamentals[edit]

If anyone cares, here are my sources for saying that some species are grown as ornamentals: Plants of the Southwest (glabra, microphylla, trilobata), High Country Gardens (aromatica, cultivar of trilobata), Wayside Gardens (yellow-leaved cultivar of typhina). —JerryFriedman 20:12, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I can indeed confirm this for what it counts. By the way, it should be noted that this shall not be pruned. I wrongly did it last year and it still didn't catch up (no flowers this year :( ). MaxDZ8 talk 20:35, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Somewhat curious...[edit]

I have two of these in my garden. I was pretty surprised they are called Sumac because my books here refer to this as Rhus. Is there any difference with the two? I believe I may want to post some additional photos - my flower is different, initially green, then turning red for all the winter and the photos does not show tree topology. It'll take some months before it warms up enough to live. MaxDZ8 20:15, 28 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Sumac is the English name, Rhus is the scientific name. Same thing. - MPF 00:52, 27 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

New pics![edit]

I've just uploaded two pics showing Sumac's trunk texture at the commons. I'm not sure where this shall go but I'll put'em here. I hope you find this useful.

Detail of trunk texture (also see the roughness)
A bending trunk. Sawed off branch at the top.
MaxDZ8 talk 08:33, 1 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
A broken branch. I think it's useful to see the internal structure. This kind of wood is very elastic but too weak for serious use. On cutting, it releases some liquids you should not touch - cleaning them away is almost impossible!
Those years' flowers are somewhat disappointing compared to the previous seasons but since a detail of this sub-species is missing, I believe this is a nice addition.
Measure of an average flower.
MaxDZ8 talk 19:08, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Broken link[edit]

    As of 2006/07/19 the Nebraska Extension link no longer points to the information 
 described, and the redirected location does not readily locate the publication 
 mentioned.

               roberthuff@rcn.com

Poisonous?[edit]

Hi, other sources of info on the Rhus have gone on about it being poisonous, eg:[1] but is this the same Rhus? If it's not should there be a disambiguation page rather than directing here to sumac? Alexander110 (talk) 02:48, 17 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There is a paragraph about that tree, Toxicodendron succedaneum, at Toxicodendron. The genus Toxicodendron is sometimes included in Rhus although I think the trend these days is to split it out. This article does mention Toxicodendron in the Taxonomy section. Kingdon (talk) 03:37, 17 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Alexander110 (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 04:14, 22 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Persian / Iranian uses[edit]

I am surprised to find no reference to Persian cooking, which (I believe) uses sumac often.Feroshki (talk) 09:32, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

How about the sentence starting "In Persian (Iranian) cuisine"? Kingdon (talk) 14:34, 28 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Distribution[edit]

"Subtropical to warm temperate" is too narrow; sumac is common where I live in central Ontario, which is not "warm" temperate (zone 3). --Dneyder (talk) 00:31, 10 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"warm temperate" is what Flora of China says. I don't know whether it is just an error or whether they intend to describe where the greatest number of species are located or some such. I've changed it to "temperate", though. Kingdon (talk) 17:06, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move[edit]

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: not moved. Jenks24 (talk) 10:47, 21 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]


Sumac → Rhus – This article is about the genus Rhus. The botanical name is unique and unambiguous. It places the genus within a clearly-defined hierarchy of family->genus->species. The English (common) name "sumac" (sumach) is ambiguous, as it may refer to the genus, a species, other genera, or the whole family. Wikipedia prefers Latin names for the vast majority of plants. Darorcilmir (talk) 09:00, 10 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • I think it would be desirable to have two pages, the genus page Rhus, and a page about the spice, called Sumac. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 12:28, 10 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I strongly support the Sumac to Rhus change, and I rather like Sminthopsis84's idea of the spice. I suppose that in due course we will split Rhus into new genera? Where I come from most of the Rhus (all?) seem scheduled to become Searsias. JonRichfield (talk) 16:20, 10 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Oppose While many plants may be referred to by their Latin names, articles about very common plants such as sumac are almost always titled by their common name, per titling policy on WP:COMMONNAME (e.g. Wheat, Maple). I think the Rhus redirect to this page works quite well as it should and, if there is sufficient content, we can add a Sumac (spice) page, but this one should stay as it is. Jojalozzo 22:43, 10 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. If there is a genuine common name, as in this case, we should use it, per WP:COMMONNAME. Readers are looking for "sumac", as you can see here. We are instructed to WP:USEENGLISH, and the dictionaries are the authorities on English-language word usage. Merriam-Webster gives "sumac." Kauffner (talk) 02:27, 11 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose The suggestion is good practice where common names are applied to disparate plants, but that doesn't seem to be the case here. I really don't think the spice is notable enough to hijack this common name. --BDD (talk) 02:52, 11 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Neutral on name - "shrub rhus" gets 131,000 "shrub sumac" gets 86,000, which suggests that when Persian cookery is taken out the proposed move has more going for it. In ictu oculi (talk) 04:20, 11 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - Sumac is the genus, just a common name for it, so there's no need to split the article. And under WP:FLORA, there's no need to move it:

    Scientific names are to be used as article titles in all cases except when a plant has an agricultural, horticultural, economic or cultural use that makes it more prominent in some other field than in botany ... .

This policy supersedes WP:COMMONNAME and WP:ENGLISH. Ibadibam (talk) 21:49, 11 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak support- Sumac does not exactly correspond to the genus currently presented in the article. There are a large number of African species which, from glancing at the blue links, have common names incorporating karee, currant, crowberry, or "rhus". Granted, these will eventually end up in Searsia, but restricting "sumac" to the species remaining in Rhus is still problematic. In my anecdotal experience, if people have heard the common name "sumac", it's most often in the context of "poison sumac" (Toxicodendron vernix). If I mention sumac in conversation, I'm constantly having to explain that they are not all poisonous (and poison sumac doesn't even occur within 200 miles of where I live).
I think it's likely that most people searching for sumac are looking for poison sumac or the spice, not the sumac genus. My Google results: sumac+spice:421k, sumac+plant:894k sumac+plant-poison:707k, "poison sumac":270k, "staghorn sumac":104k "smooth sumac":48k (all the other common names which refer to a single species have even fewer results), "harmless sumac":2k (not very popular, but the fact that this name exists at all is a testament to how important poison sumac is). Doing a search for just "sumac", the first results that are about a plant, and that aren't dictionary definitions, are about poison sumac. Finally, Google trends ([2]); searches for both Poison Sumac and Sumac have a strong seasonal element (most interest is during North American summer), search interest for Rhus and Staghorn Sumac is constant through the year.
I'm not really sure what to do about all this. The article on Rhus (whatever it is titled) should certainly include T. vernix/R. vernix as "formerly placed here". Perhaps sumac should be a disambiguation? If the Rhus article stays at Sumac, I think we need a hatnote for poison sumac and maybe also a mention in the lead.Plantdrew (talk) 20:06, 12 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Well, we do have Sumac (disambiguation), except it doesn't mention Poison sumac at all. Probably should though. Ibadibam (talk) 21:46, 12 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Fork discussion[edit]

Always difficult to know how to handle a Fork discussion inside a RM. See Talk:Cơm tấm for a similarish example between a bio product and cuisine.

  • Support fork - per Sminthopsis84 and JonRichfield - I also think it would be desirable to have two pages, the genus page Rhus (or Sumac), and a page about the spice, called Sumac or my preference Sumac (spice), Sumac should still direct to the shrub/genus and that be hatnoted to the spice. Wikilegalistically speaking "(spice)" parenthetical disamb isn't needed per TWODABS, but one can see lack of it causing all kinds of mischief and trouble in the top R/H search box if it isn't there. A fork would also allow better categorization and encourage sourcing up the spice section with Sefardi and Iranian cuisine refs. In ictu oculi (talk) 04:20, 11 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
That all sounds good to me. JonRichfield (talk) 09:28, 11 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - How is Sumac different from, say rose? There are no separate articles for the genus Rosa and Rose (cut flower). The word "sumac" can be applied to any species of Rhus, just as "rose" can be applied to any member of Rosa, even though different species are used by humans in various ways. Ibadibam (talk) 23:23, 11 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I hadn't thought of that. It doesn't look like spices are usually separate articles from the plants they're derived from. See, for example, ginger, saffron, oregano, cumin, or black pepper. A split might make sense if spice sumac were only derived from certain species; that sumac (spice) currently redirects to one of them made me think this. But it appears the spice can be made with multiple (or all) members of the genus. It would seem that separate articles on spices are used only when there isn't a one-to-one relationship between the spice and a plant, such as with paprika or chili powder. --BDD (talk) 23:44, 11 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
You're right that the redirect at Sumac (spice) is a little funky. It seems that Rhus coriaria is the species used for most Middle Eastern cuisines, as stated in the main sumac article, but then there are other species used in other regions. Ibadibam (talk) 01:44, 12 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I've gone ahead and retargeted Sumac (spice) to Sumac#Spice and beverage flavoring. --BDD (talk)
  • Support fork - under whichever names, as discussed above. Not all species of Rhus are used for the spice although more than one species is used. It is not a good situation to have as we do at present the general statement "The fruits (drupes) of the genus Rhus are ground into a reddish-purple powder used as a spice" when there are dangerous species known as Rhus such as poison sumac and poison ivy. There are good precedents for the product having a separate page from the plant genus, e.g., Cinnamon / Cinnamomum, Banana / Musa (genus). Sminthopsis84 (talk) 13:28, 12 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - Unlike cinnamon, there is only one species of Rhus in commerce. I think the situation in this case is more like Malus/Apple.Rhus coriaria certainly needs additional content about the spice, but I'm not seeing that any other species are used frequently enough to justify a separate article.Plantdrew (talk) 20:13, 12 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Are you saying cinnamon is more like apple, or that sumac is more like apple? The word cinnamon, like apple, applies specifically to a food product, whereas the word sumac applies to a genus, a spice and several other products used by humans. Ibadibam (talk) 21:53, 12 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This is deteriorating into hairsplitting. We would in any case need at least a Sumac/spice redir, and the most practical arrangement would not be to bury the spice information in a botanical article in which it would be of no technical interest and in connection with which the botanical information would be no better than noise for anyone looking up the spice. Given that the two topics would be essentially independent, their connections being adequately and conveniently dealt with by a few links, the most natural, functional and convenient arrangement is separate articles. I don't really see it as a fork at all, but if someone insists on calling it that, make the most of it: support the fork, say I. JonRichfield (talk) 11:39, 13 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
So what do we do about the other human uses of sumac, if that information is of no technical interest? It's actually very common for plant articles to have some sort of "Uses" section, which is supported by the article guidelines at WikiProject Plants, so it doesn't seem problematic to have this content in the main article for sumac. What if we rewrote the "Cultivation and uses" section in summary style, and moved most of the content to the articles for the relevant species? The "spice" section would point to Rhus coriaria as its main article, for example, and Sumac (spice) would once again redirect to R. coriaria. Ibadibam (talk) 17:59, 13 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I was saying sumac (as a spice) is more like the apple/Malus pair. Apple is a term used for the food product, the tree species which produces the food, and the genus Malus as whole, although the genus is not a subject commonly discussed. The sumac genus is commonly discussed, but the spice entirely sourced (on a commercial scale) from a single species, just as there is only one species of apple in commerce. At any rate, I generally support Ibadibam's suggestion immediately above. Redirect Sumac (spice) to R. coriaria. I don't think "Cultivation and uses" requires much summarization/removal of content, but we should be sure that content also appears in the appropriate species articles.Plantdrew (talk) 20:39, 13 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
As long as the Sumac article is supposed to stand for the whole Rhus genus (plus Searsia et al. as may or may not prove necessary, Rhus sensu lato if you like) my support for forking stands, and stands strong. If OTOH the single relevant species has its own article anyway, then I don't see why the spice material could not be inserted suitably. However, there would have to be appropriate links and redirs (such as [[Sumac (spice)}}) to ensure that users could conveniently and efficiently find whatever they wanted, no matter which aspect of the matter they were looking up. For example, if it turned out that another species was a in use as a major substitute source for the spice, there should be a suitable redir, which would not have been necessary if there had been a Sumac (spice) article. But those of course are details, and might never materialise. JonRichfield (talk) 12:44, 14 March 2013 (UTC),[reply]

Etymology Section[edit]

The etymology section is only 1 sentence long. I'm not sure that it needs its own section. I think it could be merged with the taxonomy section as information about the common name for the plant.

The etymology section includes various photos of sumac plants. They would also make more sense in the taxonomy section, which lists the species named in the photos.

--Ellapoole (talk) 15:01, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Did you know nomination[edit]

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: rejected by Narutolovehinata5 (talk) 16:49, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Ineligible

(
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  • ...that you could make a sour pink lemonade with a natural, red fruit called sumac?

5x expanded by Tigercloud (talk). Self-nominated at 14:52, 22 March 2021 (UTC).[reply]

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