PLANT: Trees or shrubs, to 10 m tall; old bark dark gray, fissured and orange beneath; twigs reddish.

LEAVES: evergreen, trifoliate; petioles 25-30 mm long; leaflets subsessile, narrowly lancelolate, entire to slightly serrate, 4-10 cm long, 0.5-1.0 cm wide, entire, leathery, dark shiny green above, pale-green beneath, glabrous; apex acuminate; base narrowly cuneate.

INFLORESCENCE: open panicles, 2-9 cm long, terminal and axillary; bracts linear-subulate.

FLOWERS: to 3 mm long; sepals ovate, glabrous; petals oblong-ovate, greenish yellow, glabrous.

FRUIT: globose, to 5 mm in diameter, tan, resinous, wrinkled.

NOTES: Cultivated as an ornamental in the Sonoran Desert, escaping and naturalized (“its naturalization may be expected”, Lundell 1961) in canyons in the Rincon and Tucson Mts. in Pima County (Philip Jenkins pers. comm.), native to southwestern Africa (Lundell 1961). The southern African sumacs have been treated as the segregate genus Searsia Barkley (Barkley 1942). Rhus lancea is here treated within Rhus sensu latu as it is beyond the scope of this new Arizona Flora project to evaluate its generic placement.

REFERENCES: John L. Anderson, 2006, Vascular Plants of Arizona: Anacardiaceae. CANOTIA 3 (2): 13-22.

Common Name: African sumac

Duration: Perennial

Nativity: Non-Native

Lifeform: Tree

Synonyms: None