Sorbus sambucifolia (Cham. & Schlecht.) Roem.

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Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Sorbus sambucifolia' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/sorbus/sorbus-sambucifolia/). Accessed 2024-03-29.

Genus

Synonyms

  • Pyrus sambucifolia Cham. & Schlecht.

Glossary

inflorescence
Flower-bearing part of a plant; arrangement of flowers on the floral axis.
acute
Sharply pointed.
apex
(pl. apices) Tip. apical At the apex.
calyx
(pl. calyces) Outer whorl of the perianth. Composed of several sepals.
ciliate
Fringed with long hairs.
glabrous
Lacking hairs smooth. glabrescent Becoming hairless.
globose
globularSpherical or globe-shaped.
lanceolate
Lance-shaped; broadest in middle tapering to point.
midrib
midveinCentral and principal vein in a leaf.
ovoid
Egg-shaped solid.
section
(sect.) Subdivision of a genus.

References

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Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Sorbus sambucifolia' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/sorbus/sorbus-sambucifolia/). Accessed 2024-03-29.

A shrub to about 10 ft high, sometimes reduced to a low, creeping shrublet; branchlets prominently and densely lenticellate; winter-buds narrow-ovoid, glabrous and glossy outside, the inner scales ciliate. Leaves with five to six pairs of leaflets (fewer in some Russian forms). Leaflets 2 to 312 in. long, up to 1 in. wide, broadly to narrowly lanceolate, tapered to an acute apex, glabrous except for hairs at their edge and sometimes on the midrib beneath, coarsely toothed. Inflorescence few-flowered, sparsely brown-hairy or glabrous. Flowers large, to about 916 in. wide, white or pink-tinged. Styles mostly three. Fruits globose, about 12 in. wide, red, with a sweet flesh, crowned with persistent, erect, leathery calyx-lobes.

Native of the Aleutians, thence west and south through Kamchatka and the shores of the Sea of Okhotsk, Anadir, Sakhalin, the Kuriles to central Japan. It is absent from North America proper, but its name has been applied to many American species, especially to S. decora and S. scopulina. The true species is not known to be in cultivation in Britain, and is unlikely to be of much ornamental value, even if it thrives, as species from the region it inhabits rarely do in our climate. Among species of the section Sorbus (Aucuparia) it is apparently unique in having leathery and erect calyx-lobes in the fruiting state.