Rhus coriaria L.
Eng.: Tanner’s sumach, elm-leaved sumach. Spa.: Zumaque. Fre.: Sumac, sumac des corroyeurs. Ara.: Sumaq, summaq, semaq, debarh, deburh.
Erect shrub or small tree up to 5 m in height. Branches fragile, densely covered with brown-greyish hairs, not glanduliferous. Leaves deciduous or semideciduous, bright green, red and orange in autumn; large, imparipinnate, with hairy rachis and with 5-7 pairs of opposite or nearly opposite leaflets. Leaflets densely pubescent on the underside, from ovate to lanceolate with crenate-serrate margin, sessile except for the terminal leaflet, which is similar to the lateral leaflets but is petiolate. Flowers densely grouped in panicles of 15-25 cm, terminal or more rarely axillary, upright and pyramidal. Flowers small 3-4 mm, unisexual or hermaphrodite, yellow-greenish, female flowers with 3 short styles, male flowers with 5 exserted stamens with yellow anthers. Calyx with 5 minute sepals, ovate, villous. Petals twice as long as the sepals, white-greenish, ovate. Fruit a lenticular reniform drupe, 4-6 mm, reddish-brown and hirsute, with glandular hairs, and lanate in appearance when mature.
Flowering:
March to May.
Fruiting:
May to August.
Habitat:
Disturbed land near towns and ancient cultivation fields, more rarely in thickets of scree slopes.
Distribution:
Presumably Irano-Turanian. In North Africa it has been cited, with doubts about his spontaneity, in Algeria (littoral region of Algiers and surrounding mountains of Constantine) and Tunisia [Tebursuk Mts. (Jebel Gorrâa) near Djebba].
Observations:
This species is included here because it has been part of the Mediterranean landscape for centuries or even millennia (and also because it is considered a native species by some authors). It has been cultivated in large areas in all the Mediterranean countries and in the W of Asia, from antiquity, due to the high concentration of tannins in the plant, especially in its bark and roots. Although it had many uses, it was mostly used for the tanning of leather. After this practice was abandoned (as was its cultivation), these shrubs continue to grow today subspontaneously in numerous parts of the Mediterranean region and in others countries of the world.
Conservation status:
Little is known about the species’ native area of distribution. In the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, it is listed as Least Concern (LC) at global level. In Algeria it is included in the List of protected non cultivated flora (Executive Decree 12-03 on 4-Jan-2012).