Staghorn Sumac

Rhus typhina · also: sumac vinaigrier, velvet sumac

coming soon 🗓 Red cones ripe August, hold into winter

How to ID it

Big fuzzy upright cones of deep-red berries at branch tips.
Compound leaves with many toothed leaflets in a row; young twigs velvety like antler 'velvet' (hence staghorn).
Forms colonies on roadsides, embankments, and waste ground; brilliant red-orange leaves in fall.

⚠ Safety & lookalikes

Critical: eat only red, upright, fuzzy cones. Poison sumac has white/green, drooping berries and grows in wet swampy ground — a completely different look and habitat. Red + upright + dry ground = safe.
Despite the scary name, edible sumac is unrelated to poison ivy toxicity; it's the same genus as the culinary Middle-Eastern spice.

The tart red spice-and-lemonade plant, ripening in August. Flag the colonies now (they’re easy to spot) and come back when the cones deepen to firm red.

Harvest

Pick whole cones on a dry day (rain washes out the tart coating that gives the flavour). Ripe cones are deep red and firm.
Taste-test: lick a cone — it should be distinctly sour/tart. Bland means under-ripe or rain-washed.

Prep

Sumac-ade: crush a few cones, soak in cold water 15–30 min (hot water pulls out bitter tannins), swish, strain through cloth, sweeten. A pink, tart, lemonade-like drink.
Spice: dry the berries, rub off and grind the outer red flesh from the seeds — that red powder is the tangy za’atar sumac. Great on flatbread, fish, salads.

Notes

(Mark the colonies now; check ripeness through August.)