TRANSCRIPT:
Thanks for listening to Interlochen Public Radio. I’m Cheryl Bartz with a quick look at What’s Up Outside.
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This week, staghorn sumac is blooming. They have big, light yellow clusters containing many tiny individual flowers. The ones by my house are covered with bees and butterflies.
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Staghorn sumac, by the way, is not poison sumac. Poison sumac is found primarily in bogs and wetlands. You would really have to go out of your way to find it. I’ve only seen it once in my life. Staghorn sumac on the other hand is very common.
The branches of staghorn sumac arch out in a way that resembles deer antlers. The branches are covered by short hairs that look like the velvet on antlers. Hence the name: staghorn sumac.
Sumac is important because it provides nectar and pollen for bees in the spring. But its secret value is that it supplies food during seasons when little else is available. The bees and butterflies feasting on sumac this week are pollinating the flowers which will mature into distinctive red cones, containing hundreds of individual fuzzy red seeds. The seeds are unpalatable when they first develop, so animals don’t eat them. But by late fall and winter, when food is scarce, the seed-filled cones are ripe and ready for birds, small mammals and deer.
Migrating birds arriving in Northern Michigan in early spring will still find some seeds on the shrubs—again, a food source when seeds and insects are scarce.
Some people call Staghorn sumac a trash plant, but personally, I am thrilled to have sumac spreading on my property. What’s not to like about a plant that is native to northern Michigan, thrives on sand, doesn’t need to be watered, feeds birds and deer in winter, and comes back strong in the spring even after rabbits gnaw it down? That’s my kind of plant.
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This is Interlochen Public Radio.