#NewThisDay Writing From My Photo Stream
Smooth Sumac, Old State Mental Hospital Grounds
“Uses: Sumac serves primarily as a winter emergency food for wildlife. Ring-necked pheasant, bobwhite quail, wild turkey, and about 300 species of songbirds include sumac fruit in their diet. It is also known to be important only in the winter diets of ruffed grouse and the sharp-tailed grouse. Fox squirrels and cottontail rabbits eat the sumac bark. White-tail deer like the fruit and stems. ”
Native plant blazing in the lost city
where the untended flames wildly
for autumn, winding and coiling over
windows boarded, doors left unlocked
so all the inmate bodies and their takers
of care, every one of them absent now,
a city of souls free to roam or remain
- USDA https://plants.usda.gov/factsheet/pdf/fs_rhgl.pdf
All photos and words copyright Kelly DuMar 2016 (unless otherwise attributed)