Rowan

Sorbus aucuparia

Family · Rosaceae · Irritating

Edible

The mountain tree that blazes with orange berries in August and is visible hundreds of metres away. It climbs higher than almost any other tree in the Peninsula and is the autumn food of thrushes.

Where it grows

Uplands · Oak woods

Also known as

mountain ash, quickbeam

In flower

In fruit

How to tell it

Compound leaves of eleven to nineteen toothed leaflets, making it look like an ash from afar, but the leaves are alternate, not opposite. White flowers in broad corymbs. Round fruits five to nine millimetres, bright orange to red, in dense hanging clusters. Smooth, shiny grey bark.

What it is confused with

Red elderberry

Sambucus racemosa

Confusion that poisons

Both bear red clusters in the mountains. Red elder has leaves of five to seven leaflets, soft white pith in the twig, and pyramid-shaped clusters; rowan has eleven to nineteen leaflets, woody twigs, and flat clusters. Red elder berries are toxic raw.

What it is for

The berries were traditionally used in jellies and liqueurs in northern Europe, always cooked. Raw they contain parasorbic acid, which irritates the stomach and causes vomiting; cooking converts it to harmless sorbic acid. Traditional use, and the cooking is not optional.

Traditionally used as food. This is not permission to eat it.

Sources

Flora-On