Autumn glory of a true American beauty

A BREEZY DAY with showers of rain is bringing clouds of leaves down off the trees. It’s the essence of autumn, my favourite season.

At the far side of the yard the dark grey tarmac now has a carpet of red and gold. It’s made up of the leaves from the stag’s horn sumacs (rhus typhina) that grow beside it. Originally it was just one tree, a sapling that was a gift from a friend. But these small trees are very industrious when it comes to producing root suckers and one sumac, left to its own devices, rapidly becomes a grove of clones.

I think the word “sumac“ (which is sometimes spelt “sumach”) is from a native American language. The sumac family is quite large and different species grow all over the globe. But the stag’s horn sumac is a native of eastern North America, where it grows in the shade of the taller trees in those forests that are so famous for their colours in the fall.