The autumn colour of smooth sumac displayed via a scan, by Maureen from Montana, aka MontanaRaven@Flickr (BPotD Flickr Group Pool | original image). Many thanks again, Maureen.

Smooth sumac is distributed throughout the continental United States and overflows into both southern Canada and northern Mexico. In a photograph by Hugh Iltis on the Robert W. Freckmann Herbarium's page for Rhus glabra, you can see evidence of its ability to propagate vegetatively, allowing it to form a contiguous mass of clonal plants. The Virginia Tech Forestry Department also has a series of photographs for smooth sumac that are worth investigating.

Photography resource link: Levels of Abstraction – Are Your Photographs Real?, an essay by Michael Reichmann of The Luminous Landscape. “For some reason there are photographers who believe that photographs and the real world have more than a passing relationship to each other. When they see a photograph that has been in some visible way altered, modified or manipulated they cry "foul" – taking on the mantle of protectors of the sanctity of the inviolate image.”