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Sumac

Rhus trilobata · Anacardiaceae · all Rhus records

Your local evidence lens

Separate evidence questions, never one approval badge

Set a ZIP to compare this record with state distribution, native range, USDA hardiness, and invasive records.

A genus split is not a placement verdict. Set a ZIP to read the local documented split.

1. Fire evidence and conditions

Fire evidence
Fire-resistant — location does not change the cited classification.
Fire-performance conditions
No test or rating condition is normalized.
Fire ecology context
No section-reviewed fire-ecology context is normalized.
Placement evidence
4 source placement records; source schemes remain separate.
Evidence regions
British Columbia; Colorado / Rocky Mountain Front Range; Montana / Northern Rockies; New Mexico; Utah / Intermountain West; southern Idaho / Intermountain
Maintenance
No sourced horticultural maintenance assertion is normalized; fire-test conditions do not supply maintenance advice.
Typed publication scope: 5 scopes across 5 cited fire sources
  • Ignition-Resistant Landscape Plants (Fact Sheet 6.305) · Official scoped edition
    • CO; partial normalized coverage · 2025-07-01

      Colorado State University Extension and the Colorado State Forest Service publish Fact Sheet 6.305 for Colorado's WUI and varied ecosystems. FireApproved exposes all 114 exact source owners at Colorado publication scope while retaining score, elevation, water, and Idaho-carrier lineage. Publication scope is not suitability for every Colorado site or zone.

  • Fire Resistance of Plants Master Database · Official scoped edition
    • Southern Idaho (ID footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2013-11-08

      The official database labels itself "For Southern Idaho" and describes Idaho residents at the urban-rangeland interface. FireApproved publishes 419 existing plant owners that cite its scored rows. This bounded Southern Idaho scope is regional context, not statewide coverage or a conclusion that the score transfers unchanged to every Idaho site.

  • Fire-Resistant Plants for Montana Landscapes (MontGuide MT200101AG) · Official scoped edition
    • MT; partial normalized coverage · 2022-04-01

      The April 2022 MontGuide explicitly presents fire-resistant species adapted to Montana. FireApproved publishes 92 exact plant records from the source while retaining excluded genus, family, and unresolved rows; the guide itself says not every listed species grows in every part of the state.

  • FireWise Plant List for New Mexico · Official scoped edition
    • NM; partial normalized coverage · 2003-10-08

      New Mexico Forestry Division publishes this as its FireWise Plant List for New Mexico. FireApproved accounts for all 140 printed rows and publishes 95 exact same-rank owners already represented in the directory; 29 exact taxa without an existing record, 14 unresolved spellings or higher-rank matches, one compound taxon cell, and one species row whose only apparent owner has an infraspecific printed identity remain held. Every published row retains the source's Y, N, ?, or blank elevation cells. Publication scope does not erase those elevation limits or establish suitability for every New Mexico site.

  • Firewise Plants for Utah Landscapes (NR/FF/002) · Official scoped edition
    • UT; partial normalized coverage · 2005-02-01

      Utah State University Extension states that this fact sheet selects examples for Utah landscapes and that they require proper placement and maintenance. FireApproved publishes 83 exact source owners at Utah publication scope. The table is not a site-specific planting clearance.

2. Why this plant is relevant here

State distribution
Documented in AR, AZ, CA, CO, IA, ID, KS, MD, MT, ND, NE, NM, NV, OK, OR, SD, TX, UT, WA, WY.
Native range
No current cited or legacy state native range is normalized.
Introduced / established
No introduced or established row is normalized; that does not prove native status.
USDA hardiness
Documented minimum 2a; no upper limit is documented.

3. Legal, ecological, and broader status

Legal-list status
Set a location for an exact legal-list result; source silence is not clearance.
Seed-list status
Set a location to compare the separate state noxious-weed seed layer.
Reported invasive here
No ecological invasive report is normalized; that does not prove noninvasiveness.
Broader regional context
Aggregate AK, HI, and L48 evidence is shown only as regional context, never as an exact-state finding.
Federal context
Federal designations remain separate from state legal-list results.
How to read this page

The status above is computed from the cited rows below: independent recommendations can support a fire-resistant result, an avoid row can produce keep-away, and disagreement stays visible as conflict. Placement notes preserve each source’s own scheme rather than translating unlike rules into one scale. This is evidence about a plant, not permission to plant it in every part of the defensible space; Zone 0 remains noncombustible.

Sumac (Rhus trilobata)
Photo: (c) Catherine C. Galley, some rights reserved (CC BY), uploaded by Catherine C. Galley (CC BY), via iNaturalist. Species-typical, not necessarily this cultivar.
Form
shrub
USDA hardiness
Minimum 2a; upper limit not documented
Mature height
~4 ft
Water need
low
Grows in
AR, AZ, CA, CO, IA, ID, KS, MD +12
Rated in
British Columbia; Colorado / Rocky Mountain Front Range; Montana / Northern Rockies; New Mexico +2
Family
Anacardiaceae
Evidence
6 cited sources

Plant hardiness evidence

These values describe the plant source. Your ZIP zone comes from the separate 2023 USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map. Whole-zone values stay whole-zone, and a single unresolved value is not treated as a tolerance range. Different source boundaries stay separate: overlapping statements are compared independently, while only ranges with no shared zone are called a conflict.

Where its sources say to plant it

Placement rules below use each source's own distances or named zones, tied to its rating. They are not interchangeable with the directory's current Zone 0 guidance.

The evidence

Grouped by what each source concluded. Primary evidence rated the plant itself (a lab, field program, or original curation); corroboration compiled or republished another source's rating and resolves to its root lineage.

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Last verified 2026-08-23. JSON (CC BY 4.0)

Profiles: USDA PLANTS · GBIF · iNaturalist · Wikidata · ITIS

Rhus trilobata (Sumac). FireApproved. https://fireapproved.com/plants/rhus-trilobata/. Last verified 2026-08-23.