Plantae > Tracheophyta > Magnoliopsida > Rosales > Rosaceae > Sorbus > Sorbus aucuparia

Sorbus aucuparia (Mountain Ash)

Synonyms:

Wikipedia Abstract

Sorbus aucuparia, commonly called rowan and mountain-ash, is a species of deciduous tree or shrub in the rose family. It is a highly variable species, and botanists have used different definitions of the species to include or exclude trees native to certain areas; a recent definition includes trees native to most of Europe and parts of Asia, as well as northern Africa. The range extends from Madeira and Iceland to Russia and northern China. Unlike many plants with similar distributions, it is not native to Japan.
View Wikipedia Record: Sorbus aucuparia

Infraspecies

Sorbus aucuparia aucuparia (European mountain ash) (Attributes)
Sorbus aucuparia f. aucuparia
Sorbus aucuparia f. xanthocarpa
Sorbus aucuparia glabrata (Attributes)
Sorbus aucuparia maderensis (Madeira Mountain Ash) (Attributes)
Sorbus aucuparia pohuashanensis (Attributes)
Sorbus aucuparia praemorsa (Attributes)
Sorbus aucuparia siberica
Sorbus aucuparia sibirica
Sorbus pohuashanensis f. pohuashanensis

Attributes

Air Quality Improvement [1]  Low
Allergen Potential [1]  Medium-Low
Carbon Capture [1]  Low
Screening - Summer [2]  Moderate
Screening - Winter [2]  Porous
Shade Percentage [1]  80 %
Temperature Reduction [1]  Low
Wind Reduction [1]  Low
Bloom Period [2]  Late Spring
Drought Tolerance [2]  Low
Edible [3]  May be edible. See the Plants For A Future link below for details.
Fire Tolerance [2]  None
Flower Type [3]  Hermaphrodite
Frost Free Days [2]  3 months 20 days
Fruit/Seed Abundance [2]  High
Fruit/Seed Begin [2]  Summer
Fruit/Seed End [2]  Fall
Growth Form [2]  Single Stem
Growth Period [2]  Spring, Summer
Growth Rate [2]  Rapid
Hazards [3]  Large quantities of the raw fruit can cause vomiting, especially if people are not used to the fruit. Seeds probably contain hydrogen cyanide. this is the ingredient that gives almonds their characteristic flavour. Unless the seed is very bitter it should be perfectly safe in reasonable quantities. In small quantities, hydrogen cyanide has been shown to stimulate respiration and improve digestion, it is also claimed to be of benefit in the treatment of cancer. In excess, however, it can cause respiratory failure and even death.
Leaf Type [3]  Deciduous
Lifespan [4]  Perennial
Pollinators [3]  Insects, Lepidoptera
Propagation [2]  Bare Root, Container, Cutting, Seed
Root Depth [2]  28 inches (71 cm)
Seed Spread Rate [2]  Slow
Seed Vigor [2]  Medium
Seeds Per [2]  125000 / lb (275578 / kg)
Shape/Orientation [2]  Erect
Specific Gravity [6]  0.629
Structure [3]  Tree
Usage [3]  An oil is obtained from the seed; A cosmetic face-mask is made from the fruits and is used to combat wrinkled skin; A black dye is obtained from the young branches; All parts of the plant contain tannin and can be used as a black dye; Trees are very wind resistant and can be used in shelterbelt plantings; Wood - hard, fine grained, compact and elastic. It is highly recommended by wood turners and is also used to make hoops for barrels, cogs and furniture;
Vegetative Spread Rate [2]  None
Flower Color [2]  White
Foliage Color [2]  Green
Fruit Color [2]  Orange
Fall Conspicuous [2]  Yes
Flower Conspicuous [2]  Yes
Fruit Conspicuous [2]  Yes
Height [3]  49 feet (15 m)
Width [3]  23 feet (7 m)
Hardiness Zone Minimum [1]  USDA Zone: 4 Low Temperature: -30 F° (-34.4 C°) → -20 F° (-28.9 C°)
Hardiness Zone Maximum [1]  USDA Zone: 6 Low Temperature: -10 F° (-23.3 C°) → 0 F° (-17.8 C°)
Light Preference [5]  Mixed Sun/Shade
Soil Acidity [5]  Mostly Acid
Soil Fertility [5]  Mostly Infertile
Soil Moisture [5]  Moist
Water Use [1]  Moderate
View Plants For A Future Record : Sorbus aucuparia

Protected Areas

Ecosystems

Predators

Providers

Pollinated by 
Aglais io (European Peacock)[8]
Vanessa atalanta (red admiral)[8]

Consumers

External References

USDA Plant Profile

NatureServe Explorer

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1i-Tree Species v. 4.0, developed by the USDA Forest Service's Northern Research Station and SUNY-ESF using the Horticopia, Inc. plant database.
♦ 2USDA Plants Database, U. S. Department of Agriculture
♦ 3Plants For A Future licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
♦ 4PLANTATT - Attributes of British and Irish Plants: Status, Size, Life History, Geography and Habitats, M. O. Hill, C. D. Preston & D. B. Roy, Biological Records Centre, NERC Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (2004)
♦ 5ECOFACT 2a Technical Annex - Ellenberg’s indicator values for British Plants, M O Hill, J O Mountford, D B Roy & R G H Bunce (1999)
♦ 6Chave J, Coomes D, Jansen S, Lewis SL, Swenson NG, Zanne AE (2009) Towards a worldwide wood economics spectrum. Ecology Letters 12: 351-366. Zanne AE, Lopez-Gonzalez G, Coomes DA, Ilic J, Jansen S, Lewis SL, Miller RB, Swenson NG, Wiemann MC, Chave J (2009) Data from: Towards a worldwide wood economics spectrum. Dryad Digital Repository.
♦ 7HOSTS - a Database of the World's Lepidopteran Hostplants Gaden S. Robinson, Phillip R. Ackery, Ian J. Kitching, George W. Beccaloni AND Luis M. Hernández
♦ 8Ecology of Commanster
♦ 9Biological Records Centre Database of Insects and their Food Plants
♦ 10Food eaten by the free-living European bison in Białowieża Forest, Zofia GĘBCZYŃSKA, Marek GĘBCZYŃSKI and Ewa MARTYNOWICZ, Acta Theriologica 36 (3-4), 307-313, 1991.
♦ 11Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
♦ 12Ben-Dov, Y., Miller, D.R. & Gibson, G.A.P. ScaleNet 4 November 2009
♦ 13del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A., Sargatal, J., Christie, D.A. & de Juana, E. (eds.). Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona.
♦ 14Juškaitis R. 2008. The Common Dormouse Muscardinus avellanarius: Ecology, Population Structure and Dynamics. Institute of Ecology of Vilnius University Publishers, Vilnius.
♦ 15New Zealand Institute for Plant & Food Research Plant-SyNZ™ database
♦ 16Farwig, Nina; Schabo, Dana G.; Albrecht, Jörg (2017), Data from: Trait-associated loss of frugivores in fragmented forest does not affect seed removal rates, Dryad, Dataset, https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.2784g
♦ 17Birds and berries: a study of an ecological interaction. Calton, Great Britain, Snow B.K., Snow D.W., 1988, T & AD Poyser. 268 p.
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0