248 ENGLISH BOTANY. 
SPECIES IL—PYRUS AUCUPARIA. Giirin. 
Prate CCCCLXXXVI. 
Sorbus aucuparia, Linn. Sp. Plant. p. 683, Sm. Eng. Bot. No. 337. 
Leaves pinnate, with 6 to 8 pairs of elliptical oblong serrate leaf- 
lets and an odd terminal one, downy beneath when young, gene- 
rally glabrous when old. Flowers in a corymbose cyme. Calyx- 
segments applied to the petals when in flower, inflexed when in 
fruit. Styles generally 8, woolly at the base. Fruit small, ovoid- 
spherical, scarlet, generally 3-celled, more rarely 2- or 4-celled. 
In woods and in hilly districts on rocks. Common, and generally 
distributed ; most abundant in the North of England and Scotland, 
reaching as far North as Orkney and Shetland. 
England, Scotland, Ireland. Tree. Early Summer. 
A tree 10 to 30 feet high, with smooth brownish-grey bark, 
reddish on the regularly spreading branches. Leaflets 1 to 2 inches 
long, sub-sessile, with acuminated serratures which are rounded on 
the outer margin, pale beneath, but generally downy only on the 
veins when mature. Corymb compact, many-flowered. Flowers 
2 inch across, cream-white. Petals orbicular-concave. Fruit 
2 inch long, bright scarlet, with the flesh yellowish; the cells 
containing the seeds tougher than in the preceding species. 
Wountain-ash, Rowan-tree. 
German, Gaertn, Eberesche. 
This elegant tree is known to most persons in this country as an ornament of the 
shrubbery and plantation. Its beautiful pinnated leaves and bright scarlet berries make 
it an attractive object wherever it is seen. The tree grows rapidly for the first three or 
four years, attaining in five years the height of eight or nine feet, after which it begins 
to form a head, and in ten years will attain the height of twenty feet. This head will 
continue to increase slowly, though seldom growing higher, for the greater part of a 
century, after which the extremities of the branches begin to decay. The tree will not 
bear lopping, but grass and other plants grow well under its shade. It is a tree well 
adapted for small or suburban gardens, and is always a beautiful object : it never 
requires pruning, and never grows out of shape. Singing-birds rejoice in its berries, 
and the owner of such a tree has the double pleasure of listening to the songs of the 
thrush and the blackbird, and of beholding the brilliant branches of coral berries whieh 
tempt them there. In various parts of the North of Europe these berries are dried 
and ground into flour and used in times of scarcity. In Wales and the Highlands they 
are sometimes eaten, and the juice is fermented into a liquid resembling cider. Evelyn 
says : “ Ale and beer brewed with these berries, being ripe, is an incomparable drink, 
familiar in Wales.” He adds: “Besides the use of this tree for the husbandman’s 
tools, goods, &c., the wheelwright commends it for being all heart ; our fletchers 
(archers) commend it for bows next to yew, which we ought not to pass over for the 
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