Right outsidePlants
Staghorn sumac: scarlet fall leaves and red fruit into winter
When: September to October
Staghorn sumac and its smaller relative smooth sumac grow in shrubby colonies along roadsides, field edges, and highway banks across eastern Massachusetts, and their leaves turn brilliant scarlet, orange, and gold in early fall. On female plants, upright cone-shaped clusters of fuzzy red fruit stand above the leaves and stay on the bare branches long after they fall, a food source birds keep returning to through the winter.
Why this time of year
In early fall sumac leaves turn bright scarlet and orange, which makes the colonies easy to spot along roadsides then. The upright red fruit cones stay behind once the leaves drop, a food source birds will keep returning to well into winter.
How to notice it
- Scan roadsides, highway banks, and field edges for shrubby colonies with long, fern-like compound leaves turning scarlet, orange, and gold.
- Look for the upright, cone-shaped clusters of fuzzy, dark red fruit standing at the branch tips, even once the leaves have dropped.
- Feel a twig on the larger-leaved staghorn sumac: it should be covered in dense brown fuzz, the "velvet" that gives the plant its name (smooth sumac's twigs are bare by comparison).
- Through the winter, watch the fruit cones for robins, chickadees, blue jays, or cardinals feeding when little else is left to eat.
Try this with kids: Can you spot the fuzzy red sumac cones sticking up above the leaves? Touch a staghorn sumac twig, does it feel soft and fuzzy like a young deer's antler?
compound leaf: one leaf made of many small leaflets branching off a central stem, like a fern frond, rather than a single solid blade.
Safety
- Poison sumac is a different, uncommon plant that grows only in wet swamps, bogs, and marshes; its berries are whitish and hang in drooping clusters, unlike the upright red fruit cones of roadside staghorn and smooth sumac. If you see white, hanging berries in a wetland, do not touch the plant.
Sources
- umass.eduUMass Extension's Rhus typhina profile: fruit is 'red and velvety when mature' held in an 'upright panicle,' and the stems are covered in 'dense velvety hairs'.
- mvtimes.comMartha's Vineyard Times naturalist column (Sept 2026): sumac berries 'remain firmly attached to the plant deep into the winter, making them accessible at a season when many other avian food sources have become hard to locate'; poison sumac on the Vineyard is 'a wetland species, white-berried and scarce.'
- dec.ny.govNY DEC: poison sumac berries are whitish and hang downward, it grows only in wetlands, while staghorn and smooth sumac carry red berries in upright clusters along sunny roadsides.
- grownativemass.orgGrow Native Massachusetts: sumac leaves turn 'fiery scarlet, orange and yellow' in fall; fruit clusters 'ripen in late summer and often persist... throughout the fall and winter months'; crimson berries are 'an important food source for overwintering and migrating birds.'
- westboroughlandtrust.orgWestborough Land Trust nature notes: sumac leaves 'turn bright scarlet' in early fall after berries ripen in late July/early August; 'in winter, sumacs lose their leaves but the berry clusters last until birds can no longer find better food,' naming wild turkeys, chickadees, blue jays, cardinals, and robins.
- auduboncnc.orgAudubon nature center article: staghorn sumac's new twigs are 'covered in soft fuzz, much like the velvet covering of male deer (stag) antlers'; fruit clusters stand 'erect at the end of the branches' and persist 'through the winter'; Blue Jays, American Robins, Cedar Waxwings, and Downy Woodpeckers feed on the berries.
Checked against these sources on September 22, 2026.
In the guide for September, October