Talk:Sumac

message: If anyone cares, here are my sources for saying that some species are grown as ornamentals: Plants of the Southwest (glabra, microphylla, trilobata), High Country Gardens (aromatica, cultivar of trilobata), Wayside Gardens (yellow-leaved cultivar of typhina).  —JerryFriedman 20:12, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Ornamentals

message: I have two of these in my garden.
I was pretty surprised they are called Sumac because my books here refer to this as Rhus. Is there any difference with the two?
I believe I may want to post some additional photos - my flower is different, initially green, then turning red for all the winter and the photos does not show tree topology. It'll take some months before it warms up enough to live. MaxDZ8 20:15, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Sumac is the English name, Rhus is the scientific name. Same thing. - MPF 00:52, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Somewhat curious...

message: I've just uploaded two pics showing Sumac's trunk texture at the commons. I'm not sure where this shall go but I'll put'em here. I hope you find this useful.
MaxDZ8 talk 08:33, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  New pics! 

message: Hi, other sources of info on the Rhus have gone on about it being poisonous, eg:
but is this the same Rhus?  If it's not should there be a disambiguation page rather than directing here to sumac? Alexander110 (talk) 02:48, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: There is a paragraph about that tree, Toxicodendron succedaneum, at Toxicodendron.  The genus Toxicodendron is sometimes included in Rhus although I think the trend these days is to split it out.  This article does mention Toxicodendron in the Taxonomy section. Kingdon (talk) 03:37, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks Alexander110 (talk)  —Preceding comment was added at 04:14, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Poisonous? 

message: I am surprised to find no reference to Persian cooking, which (I believe) uses sumac often.Feroshki (talk) 09:32, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: How about the sentence starting "In Persian (Iranian) cuisine"? Kingdon (talk) 14:34, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Persian / Iranian uses

message: "Subtropical to warm temperate" is too narrow; sumac is common where I live in central Ontario, which is not "warm" temperate (zone 3).
--Dneyder (talk) 00:31, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: "warm temperate" is what Flora of China says.  I don't know whether it is just an error or whether they intend to describe where the greatest number of species are located or some such. I've changed it to "temperate", though. Kingdon (talk) 17:06, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Distribution 

message: Always difficult to know how to handle a Fork discussion inside a RM. See Talk:Cơm tấm for a similarish example between a bio product and cuisine.
*Support fork - per Sminthopsis84 and JonRichfield - I also think it would be desirable to have two pages, the genus page Rhus (or Sumac), and a page about the spice, called Sumac or my preference Sumac (spice), Sumac should still direct to the shrub/genus and that be hatnoted to the spice. Wikilegalistically speaking "(spice)" parenthetical disamb isn't needed per TWODABS, but one can see lack of it causing all kinds of mischief and trouble in the top R/H search box if it isn't there. A fork would also allow better categorization and encourage sourcing up the spice section with Sefardi and Iranian cuisine refs. In ictu oculi (talk) 04:20, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: That all sounds good to me. JonRichfield (talk) 09:28, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I hadn't thought of that. It doesn't look like spices are usually separate articles from the plants they're derived from. See, for example, ginger, saffron, oregano, cumin, or black pepper. A split might make sense if spice sumac were only derived from certain species; that sumac (spice) currently redirects to one of them made me think this. But it appears the spice can be made with multiple (or all) members of the genus. It would seem that separate articles on spices are used only when there isn't a one-to-one relationship between the spice and a plant, such as with paprika or chili powder. --BDD (talk) 23:44, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: You're right that the redirect at Sumac (spice) is a little funky. It seems that Rhus coriaria is the species used for most Middle Eastern cuisines, as stated in the main sumac article, but then there are other species used in other regions. Ibadibam (talk) 01:44, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I've gone ahead and retargeted Sumac (spice) to Sumac#Spice and beverage flavoring. --BDD (talk)
*Support fork - under whichever names, as discussed above. Not all species of Rhus are used for the spice although more than one species is used. It is not a good situation to have as we do at present the general statement "The fruits (drupes) of the genus Rhus are ground into a reddish-purple powder used as a spice" when there are dangerous species known as Rhus such as poison sumac and poison ivy. There are good precedents for the product having a separate page from the plant genus, e.g., Cinnamon / Cinnamomum, Banana / Musa (genus). Sminthopsis84 (talk) 13:28, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

text: Are you saying cinnamon is more like apple, or that sumac is more like apple? The word cinnamon, like apple, applies specifically to a food product, whereas the word sumac applies to a genus, a spice and several other products used by humans. Ibadibam (talk) 21:53, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: This is deteriorating into hairsplitting. We would in any case need at least a Sumac/spice redir, and the most practical arrangement would not be to bury the spice information in a botanical article in which it would be of no technical interest and in connection with which the botanical information would be no better than noise for anyone looking up the spice. Given that the two topics would be essentially independent, their connections being adequately and conveniently dealt with by a few links, the most natural, functional and convenient arrangement is separate articles. I don't really see it as a fork at all, but if someone insists on calling it that, make the most of it: support the fork, say I. JonRichfield (talk) 11:39, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: So what do we do about the other human uses of sumac, if that information is of no technical interest? It's actually very common for plant articles to have some sort of "Uses" section, which is supported by the article guidelines at WikiProject Plants, so it doesn't seem problematic to have this content in the main article for sumac. What if we rewrote the "Cultivation and uses" section in summary style, and moved most of the content to the articles for the relevant species? The "spice" section would point to Rhus coriaria as its main article, for example, and Sumac (spice) would once again redirect to R. coriaria. Ibadibam (talk) 17:59, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I was saying sumac (as a spice) is more like the apple/Malus pair.  Apple is a term used for the food product, the tree species which produces the food, and the genus Malus as whole, although the genus is not a subject commonly discussed. The sumac genus is commonly discussed, but the spice entirely sourced (on a commercial scale) from a single species, just as there is only one species of apple in commerce. At any rate, I generally support Ibadibam's suggestion immediately above. Redirect Sumac (spice) to R. coriaria.  I don't think "Cultivation and uses" requires much summarization/removal of content, but we should be sure that content also appears in the appropriate species articles.Plantdrew (talk) 20:39, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: As long as the Sumac article is supposed to stand for the whole Rhus genus (plus Searsia et al. as may or may not prove necessary, Rhus sensu lato if you like) my support for forking stands, and stands strong. If OTOH the single relevant species has its own article anyway, then I don't see why the spice material could not be inserted suitably. However, there would have to be appropriate links and redirs (such as [[Sumac (spice)}}) to ensure that users could conveniently and efficiently find whatever they wanted, no matter which aspect of the matter they were looking up. For example, if it turned out that another species was a in use as a major substitute source for the spice, there should be a suitable redir, which would not have been necessary if there had been a Sumac (spice) article. But those of course are details, and might never materialise. JonRichfield (talk) 12:44, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Fork discussion

message: The etymology section is only 1 sentence long. I'm not sure that it needs its own section. I think it could be merged with the taxonomy section as information about the common name for the plant.
The etymology section includes various photos of sumac plants. They would also make more sense in the taxonomy section, which lists the species named in the photos.
--Ellapoole (talk) 15:01, 29 September 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Etymology Section