Ill post a pic of a log with the bark on it and then a pic of the Alanthus you mentioned
VigIIPeaBurner wrote:It sounds to me like your friend might have mistaken Ailanthus, or more commonly called the Chinese Tree of Heaven for sumac. It happens a lot. Ailanthus was introduced from China as an ornamental There are male and female trees and the leaves and bark are similar to sumac but the flowers are different. I had a stand of it at my last house and the fire wood isn't half bad. It was easily 50' high, probably higher and alomost 20" dia. The stuff is invasive and grows quickly after the ground is disturbed if there's a tree with viable seeds nearby. The seeds blow around like maple seeds. If it's 15" diameter, I doubt it's staghorn sumac- the stuff with red cone shaped clusters, is more shrub like in size. BTW, some people make a tea out of the staghorn cluster. Poision sumac has white berries, not red cone shaped clusers. Like Smitty said, the poision variety likes wet spots. I can vouch for how nasty the blisters get
Edit - if this is what you have, 2 dump loads for $40 is a STEAL. It's burn temperature is somewhere between black walnut and white ash. I burned quite a few cords of this over the years.