Home › Volumes › Trees › How to Know the Trees

Key to Species — Part 24

A. Buds sticky; shoots smooth.

B. Leaflets taper pointed, pale green.

(S. Americana) AMERICAN MOUNTAIN ASH

BB. Leaflets abruptly pointed, dark green.

(S. sambucifolia) ELDER-LEAVED MOUNTAIN ASH

AA. Buds woolly; branchlets and petioles pubescent; leaflets blunt pointed, dull green. (Exotic.)

(S. Aucuparia) EUROPEAN MOUNTAIN ASH or ROWAN TREE

The handsome foliage and showy clusters of flowers and fruits make this a favourite genus of trees and shrubs for ornamental planting. There are about thirty species of Sorbus, widely distributed over the Northern Hemisphere and chiefly inhabitants of mountain slopes. Their contentment with poor soil and exposed situations make them valuable for the covering of broken ground, where they show to the best advantage. In autumn the red berries are matched by the ruddy foliage. Birds often depend on the berries for food in snowy winters. On a lawn a mountain ash is a neat and very decorative little tree at all seasons.

Mountain Ash (Sorbus Americana, Marsh.) --A small tree, attaining 30 feet, with slender spreading branches, forming pyramidal head. Bark smooth, brown or grey, with large lenticels like those on cherry; taste bitter. Wood pale brown, close grained, weak. Buds reddish, pointed, glutinous. Leaves pinnate, 6 to 12 inches long, alternate; petioles red; leaflets 13 to 17, lanceolate, dark yellow-green, pale beneath. Flowers creamy white, perfect, small, in broad, compound, flat-topped corymbs, after the leaves in May and June. Fruit small, scarlet, berry-like, with thin flesh and bony seeds. Ripe in September and hang on all winter. Preferred habitat, rich, moist soil. Distribution, New-foundland to Manitoba; south along mountains to Tennessee and North Carolina. Uses: Planted for its red berries and fern-like foliage. Fruit used in home remedies.

The way to see our American mountain ash at its best is to take a leisurely October drive through the wooded uplands of New England or lower Canada. Along the borders of swamps, or climbing the rocky bluffs, with the wild plums and the straggling beeches, this frail scarlet-berried ash leaps up like a yellow flame, and the broad discs of its fruit gleam among the leaves like red embers in a grate. There is no handsomer leaf at any season than this one, on its red stem, its pointed leaflets dainty and slim as a willow's.

I have wondered that people prefer to plant in their gardens the European species. But I find it is not all the deep-seated craving for imported things. The American tree languishes in warm, dry climates and in the protected situations we are apt to choose. It shows a distinct preference for cold, unsheltered places, exposed to winds, where its growth is stunted. Though its range extends into the Southern States, it always keeps to high altitudes.

The Elder-leaved Mountain Ash (Sorbus sambucifolia, Roem.) is even more daring in its fight with the elements. It climbs higher on the mountains, and ranges from Labrador to Alaska, following the Rocky Mountains to Colorado. In the East, it goes no farther south than Pennsylvania. The same species inhabits Japan and eastern China,

This species has showier flowers and fruit clusters than S. Americana. In the large area where their ranges overlap, these two can be best distinguished by their leaves. This Western mountain ash has darker green foliage, of abruptly pointed leaflets. The fruits have five large, erect calyx points at the blossom end. These points are small on the berries of the other species, and are bent inward until they lie flat.

All through the summer the graceful, elder-like foliage of the Western mountain ash makes it a tropical-looking tree among its north temperate forest neighbours, though it is rarely more than 15 feet in height. Its open, pyramidal head gives each leaf a chance. After the leaves have fallen, the twigs still hold up their broad discs of scarlet berries that cling until winter is well past.

The Rowan Tree or European mountain ash (Sorbus Aucuparia, Linn.) is the one people usually plant on their lawns in this country. This trim, round-headed tree is very conventional and well-behaved compared with its country cousins back in the hills. Long discipline at the gardener's hands has made it what it is. In the craggy highlands of Scotland and Wales it leads a wild life, and is there quite different from the familiar garden tree. Strange legends and superstitions, centuries old, cluster around the rowan in all rural sections of Europe. They are preserved in the folklore and the literature of many languages. The tree, its berries, a leafy spray, or a bit of its wood--all were considered to be effectual charms to exorcise evil spirits, and to undo their work. The rowan was planted at the gates of churchyards, and by cottage doors; and leafy twigs were hung over the thresholds. Crosses of "roan" wood, given out on festival days, were worn as amulets, and were tacked up over the doors of houses and barns. Milkmaids, especially, depended on them for the defeat of the "black elves" who tried to make their cows go dry, and, unless prevented, got into the churns, and then the butter would never come! We shall look upon this pretty tree with new interest, and perhaps a mild kind of awe, knowing how it has been regarded by our ancestors.