Rowan
Sorbus aucuparia
Family · Rosaceae · Irritating
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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.
Uplands · Oak woods
Also known asmountain ash, quickbeam
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
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.
Where it occurs
Each square is an area with recorded observations of this plant. The lighter background is the set of areas where any of the entries has been observed, and serves as a reference. Note what this is not: it is not where the plant lives, it is where people record it, so trails and towns always look fuller than the mountains. Data from GBIF.
Sources
Community
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