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Rhus potaninii; photograph Michael Wolf, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SAMichael Wolf, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Rhus potaninii Maxim.

Potanin Sumac

Anacardiaceae · China South-Central, China North-Central +1

No habitat climate
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Summary

Rhus potaninii, the Chinese varnish tree, Chinese sumac (names it shares with other species), Potanin's sumac, or Potanin's lacquer tree, is a species of flowering plant in the family Anacardiaceae. It is native to central and southern China. A deciduous tree reaching 12 m (39 ft), it is typically found growing on hill and mountain slopes, in forests and thickets at elevations from 900 to 2,500 m (3,000 to 8,200 ft) above sea level. It is named for its collector, Grigory Potanin. More on Wikipedia ›

Quoted from Wikipedia, "Rhus potaninii", CC BY-SA 4.0.

About the genus · Rhus

Sumac or sumach —not to be confused with poison sumac—is any of the roughly 35 species of flowering plants in the genus Rhus of the cashew and mango tree family, Anacardiaceae. However, it is Rhus coriaria that is most commonly used for culinary purposes. Sumac is prized as a spice—especially in Middle Eastern cuisine—and used as a dye and holistic remedy. More on Wikipedia ›

Quoted from Wikipedia, "Sumac", CC BY-SA 4.0.

Cultivation

Nothing derived: no habitat climate for this species.

Climate across the habitat

No habitat climate can be derived: 195 in-range records, none placed to within 10 km. 195 of the 195 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km, or to no stated accuracy and fewer than three decimals or by something other than a person's observation, and cannot place a climate cell, though they count for the map and its marker.

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeChina South-Central, China North-Central, China Southeast · regions are the level-3 units of the World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions, as Kew's World Checklist records ranges, some under historical names such as Yugoslavia or Czechoslovakia (how).
Map marker34.517, 110.894 · in the densest population, 93 records (48% of those in range)
Kew's description“tree” · “temperate” · quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Evidence usedThe map marker rests on all 195 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 71 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 23 km away. 6 records outside the WCVP native range not used. No climate across the range is derived for this species. 195 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km, or with no stated accuracy (admitted only as a person's observation to three decimals), and stay on the map but off the climate.
How this section is made
The map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population inside the densest 2° block of the 195 in-range records; it decides nothing. Records outside the native range, living specimens and records marked introduced are not used; which records count.

Other Rhus 19 in the reference

Rhus aromatica Rhus aromatica Fragrant sumac Photo: CC BY, Nathan AaronRhus chinensis Rhus chinensis Chinese sumac Photo: CC BY, 大澤風季 ohsawa_FukiRhus copallinum Rhus copallinum Anacardiaceae Photo: CC BY-SA, Magnus ManskeRhus coriaria Rhus coriaria Tanner's sumach Photo: CC BY, Filipi Miranda SoaresRhus glabra Rhus glabra Smooth sumac Photo: CC BY, Dustin SniderRhus hartmanii Rhus hartmanii Anacardiaceae Photo: CC BY-SA, Krzysztof Ziarnek, KenraizRhus integrifolia Rhus integrifolia Lemonade sumac Photo: CC BY, Ryan DonnellyRhus kearneyi Rhus kearneyi Kearney's sumac Photo: CC BY, Trevor Van LoonRhus lentii Rhus lentii Pink-flowering Sumac Photo: CC BY, Sula VanderplankRhus michauxii Rhus michauxii Michaux's sumac Photo: CC BY, Ashwin SrinivasanRhus microphylla Rhus microphylla Desert sumac Photo: CC BY, Ian McFaulRhus ovata Rhus ovata Sugar sumac Photo: CC BY, Ryan Donnelly all 20 ›

Names & registers

Also known as Rhus henryi; Rhus sinica. (GBIF Backbone)

GBIFPOWOIPNIWFOWikidataWikipediaiNaturalist

The record

Family
Anacardiaceae
Described by
Maxim.
Native to
China South-Central, China North-Central, China Southeast
Wild records
195 in range · 71 open

Every figure here is derived from public data by a stated rule and names its source; nothing about this species is written for its page by a person or by AI, apart from the marked, credited quotations. How →

Where this page came from built 2026-10-22
GBIF species record gbif.species answeredasked 2026-10-22
GBIF synonyms gbif.synonyms answeredasked 2026-10-22
GBIF common names gbif.vernacular answeredasked 2026-10-22names fetched 2026-10-22
WCVP native range wcvp.distribution answeredas of 2026-06-04
GBIF occurrence records gbif.occurrences answeredas of 2026-10-21GBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.hbdw64, of 2026-10-21; 1 record within 1 km of a botanic garden, herbarium or zoo left out (1 at a herbarium; Wikidata's list)
Habitat climate climate nothing to reportasked 2026-10-22195 in-range records, none placed to within 10 km
Wikidata wikidata answeredasked 2026-10-22
Wikipedia wikipedia answeredasked 2026-10-22
iNaturalist photographs, wild inat.photos.wild nothing to reportasked 2026-10-22from iNaturalist's open data of 2026-09-27: research-grade observations with an open-licence photograph, the 24 whose photographs iNaturalist received last (the open data holds no votes); filled 2026-10-22
iNaturalist photographs, cultivated inat.photos.cultivated not asked
GBIF media gbif.media nothing to reportasked 2026-10-22
Wikimedia Commons commons answeredasked 2026-10-22
OpenAlex papers openalex not askednot yet asked for this reference; a later fill takes the papers from OpenAlex's snapshot

Every source is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, refused, failed, not been asked, or answered twice where one answer is taken (“not taken: two items answered”), and, for a source asked when this page was built, when: the figures are as the source held them that day; a source read from a file (Kew's World Checklist, a GBIF download) says "as of" the file's day instead; a row carried from an earlier build of the page names that build instead. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 18 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.

Cultifolio

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