The Survival of the Sumac

(Once again, if someone knows how to make my pix look clearer, please let me know.)

In different environments, certain plants and animals survive well and some do not survive at all. If you planted lettuce near your front door, and you did not water it, it would die. Lettuce needs very cool temperatures and lots of water and very loose soil. The plant in the picture here is Laurel Sumac. Laurel Sumac survives very well in Orange County, without the help of humans.

The Laurel Sumac has special adaptations which help it live in Orange County. An adaptation is something that helps a plant or animal survive in an area. While lettuce has roots that are about 5 inches long, the Laurel Sumac has roots which can go down 40 feet! The roots can find water deep in the clay-like soil. Lettuce has thin, delicate leaves. Water escapes easily from these leaves so lettuce dries out quickly. Laurel Sumac has thick, leathery leaves that are shaped like a taco. Water stays longer in leaves like this. If there was a fire, lettuce would burn up into a crisp. Laurel Sumac can resist really high fire temperatures before it finally burns.

I have grown lettuce in my backyard garden. I had to use a lot of care and a lot of water to make it grow. You know what else has grown in my back yard? A Laurel Sumac bush. Do you know how it got there? A Warbler bird ate the dried seeds of another Laurel Sumac plant. Then the bird pooped (ooh ick, I know). The seed in the bird poop dropped onto the dirt hill of my backyard. Then, without any care or water from me, the seed sprouted and slowly grew into a lovely 15-foot Laurel Sumac plant! Because it has so many wonderful adaptations, the Laurel Sumac grows easily in the dry dirt in my backyard.

The tribal people in this area harvested Laurel Sumac for many uses. Sumac leaves smell good, so they can be used as pot pourri. The branches were used to make a ceremonial building called a "wamkish." Smaller branches were woven into baskets and smaller hand tools. Later, orange grove farmers would look for Laurel Sumac bushes. They knew that if sumac plants could survive in the area, there was little danger of frost. Then orange trees would survive, too. So if they saw sumac, they knew they could plant orange trees.

Hopefully in the future, people will plant more Orange County native plants around here. They will need very little water and very little trimming. Look at some plants outside your front door. Does someone have to take care of them? Or do those plants take care of themselves? Ask an adult if you can take out one old plant and replace it with a plant that grows well in your environment.

Here is the website of Tree of Life Nursery. They grow plants that survive easily in Orange County. They have a catalog that can be downloaded.

http://www.californianativeplants.com/

Check out all the plants that require very little water and very little care. Lots of these plants attract birds and butterflies, too.

Did you find this useful? If so, you can send a "tip" to my PAYPAL.COM account. My email address is kathomatho@yahoo.com. I will donate 10% of your tip to The Orange County Zoo.