Both plants are tall shrubs with colorful fall foliage, though one is poisonous and one is not.
Key identifying features set them apart.
belong to the same family as well.
The Spruce / Evgeniya Vlasova
Another beneficial plant in the family is thesmoke bush(Cotinus coggygria), a popular ornamental landscape plant.
Poison sumac is aplant of very wet areas.
It is a frequent inhabitant of stretches along the roadside where the soil is dry.
Because it spreads to form massive colonies, you usually do not see a single plant standing alone.
The berries (drupes) provide the most obvious clue.
Poison sumac sports groups of separate berries (not fused together) that droop down from small stems.
The shape of the berries is flattish.
They mature to an off-white color in the fall.
But the berries of staghornsumac are red.
They are packed tightly together in soft, cone-shaped tufts that grow upright.
So learning the differences between their leaves and twigs is even more helpful.
Both poison sumac and staghorn sumac have compound leaves, made up of individual leaflets.
Happily, their leaves differ in a few ways, so you should have no trouble telling them apart.
