United States / Grow / poison sumac

poison sumac

Toxicodendron vernix · Anacardiaceae · all Toxicodendron records · Wikipedia

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Form: tree
Mature height: ~15 ft
Rated in: eastern US

On this lot

1. Fire evidence and conditions

Fire evidence: Mixed evidence — location does not change the cited classification.
Fire-performance conditions
Fire ecology context
Placement evidence: 1 source placement record; source schemes remain separate.
Evidence regions: eastern US
Maintenance

2. Why this plant is relevant here

State distribution: Documented in AL, CT, DC, DE, FL, GA, IL, IN, KY, LA, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MS, NC, NH, NJ, NY, OH, PA, RI, SC, TN, TX, VA, VT, WI, WV.
Native range: Current cited native range in AL, CT, DC, DE, FL, GA, IL, IN, KY, LA, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MS, NC, NH, NJ, NY, OH, PA, RI, SC, TN, TX, VA, VT, WI, WV.
Introduced / established
USDA hardiness: Only uncertain or inapplicable hardiness rows are cited; no primary zone is projected.

3. Legal, ecological, and broader status

Legal-list status
Seed-list status
Reported invasive here
Broader regional context
Federal context

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.

Native and introduced range evidence

These are exact U.S. botanical-area records from the cited range source. Native and introduced describe biogeographic relationship, not fire performance or planting approval. Doubtful and extinct rows stay visible but do not count as current presence.

Current native

30

exact source areas

Current introduced

0

exact source areas

Qualified

0

doubtful or extinct source rows

30 native source areas · World Checklist of Vascular Plants, version 16 v16, as of 2026-06-04

Alabama (AL)
Connecticut (CT)
District of Columbia (DC)
Delaware (DE)
Florida (FL)
Georgia (GA)
Illinois (IL)
Indiana (IN)
Kentucky (KY)
Louisiana (LA)
Massachusetts (MA)
Maryland (MD)
Maine (ME)
Michigan (MI)
Minnesota (MN)
Mississippi (MS)
North Carolina (NC)
New Hampshire (NH)
New Jersey (NJ)
New York (NY)
Ohio (OH)
Pennsylvania (PA)
Rhode I. (RI)
South Carolina (SC)
Tennessee (TN)
Texas (TX)
Virginia (VA)
Vermont (VT)
Wisconsin (WI)
West Virginia (WV)

The lossless worldwide derivative is retained once in the research corpus; object pages repeat only exact U.S. areas needed by the local lens. The JSON twin carries the same page assertions.

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.

Eastern United States Fire Performance Plant Selector · 2016-wayback · as of 2026-08-26

Source prints 5 · single-value meaning unresolved · whole zone precision · source stated

Source taxon: Toxicodendron vernix · exact match.

Source location: Cold Hardiness Zone field in the recovered selector record.

Not used for comparison: The recovered selector prints one Cold Hardiness Zone value but does not define it as a minimum threshold or a one-zone range.

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.

Eastern United States Fire Performance Plant Selector: Landscape Zone 4 — beyond 30 ft; outside the selector's recommendation area [Fire Performance Plant Selector landscape zone] (mid-scale rating)

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.

Mid-scale / conditional (1)

Eastern United States Fire Performance Plant Selector — USDA Forest Service Northeastern Area S&PF + state Firewise programs (WV, OH, PA, DE, DC, MD, NJ) · 2016-wayback · original source Primary evidence Keyed curation lineage: ufifas-srs-tree

“AT RISK Firewise (3) (source spelling: Toxidendron vermix)”

Causes skin rashes in most individuals-red to yellow fall color-white fruit clusters in leaf axils-pinnately compound leaves with 7 to 11 leaflets. Always found growing in wetlands or swamps.

Fire-resistant trees instead

American basswood
Tilia americana

red maple
Acer rubrum

black cherry
Prunus serotina

white oak
Quercus alba

American beech
Fagus grandifolia

white ash
Fraxinus americana

Last verified 2026-08-24. JSON (CC BY 4.0)

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

Toxicodendron vernix (Poison sumac). FireApproved. https://fireapproved.com/plants/toxicodendron-vernix/. Last verified 2026-08-24.