354 TREES IN WINTER 



AMERICAN MOUNTAIN ASH 

 Rowan or Service Tree. 



Pyrus americana (Marsh.) DC. 

 Sorbus amei'icana Marsh. 



HABIT — A shrub or small tree 15-20 ft. hig-h or in northern New 

 Eng-land reaching a height of 25-30 ft. with a trunk diameter of 12-15 

 inches, with slender spreading- branches forming a rather narrow 

 round-topped head. 



BARK — Grayish-brown, smooth or on older trees somewhat roughish, 



TAVIGS — Stout, smooth, reddish to grayish-brown. LENTICELS — con- 

 spicuous, large, pale, oblong-, remotely scattered. PITH — broad, slightly 

 reddish- brown. 



LEAF-SCARS — Alternate, more than 2-ranked, large, crescent to 

 broadly U or V-shaped, raised on a projection darker than the twig. 

 STIPULE-SCARS— absent. BUNDLE-SCARS — regularly 5, often raised, 

 arranged in a single curved line. 



BUDS — Terminal buds large, about 13 mm. long, ovate to broadly 

 conical, with a curved pointed apex, dark purplish-red, gummy and 

 smooth or with few hairs on the surface, densely woolly within; lateral 

 buds smaller, flattened and appressed. BUD-SCALES — 2-3 visible to 

 terminal bud, 1-2 to lateral bud. 



FRUIT — Berry-like, bright red, strong-ly acid, round, about the size 

 of a pea, in flat-topped clusters persistent through the winter. 



COMPARISOIVS — A larger fruited form, the Western Mountain Ash 

 [Pyrus sitchensis (Roem. ) Piper], is considered by some a distinct 

 species but by others only a variety of the type described. It is more 

 northerly and westerly in its distribution. The European Mountain 

 Ash [Pyrus Aucuparia (L.) Ehrh.] with many horticultural forms is 

 more frequently cultivated than the American species and has escaped 

 from cultivation in some places. It may be distinguished by the white 

 hairy down present especially on the upper half of the terminal bud 

 and by the larger fruits (about 10 mm. broad) arrang-ed in a rather 

 round-topped cluster. The habit, bark, fruit and lower twig photo- 

 graphs are of the European species. 



DISTRIBUTION — River banks, cool woods, swamps and mountains, 

 Newfoundland to Manitoba; south, in cold swamps and along the moun- 

 tains to North Carolina; west to Michigan and Minnesota. 



IN NEW ENGLAND — Maine — common; New Hampshire — common 

 along the watersheds of the Connecticut and Merrimac rivers and on 

 the slopes of the White Mountains; Vermont — abundant far up the 

 slopes of the Green mountains; Massachusetts — Graylock, Wachusett, 

 Watatic, and other mountainous regions; rare eastward; Connecticut — 

 rare or local; swamps and about ponds or sometimes on dry ledges or 

 in rocky woods; Staitord, Durham and Meriden, Granby, Winchester, Nor- 

 folk, Canaan, Salisbury, Kent; Rhode Island — occasional in the north- 

 ern sections. 



The variety (Pyrus sitchensis) the Western Mountain Ash, has the fol- 

 lowing distribution — Mountain slopes, cool woods, along the shores of 

 rivers and ponds, often associated with Pyrxis arnericana, but climbing 

 higher up the mountains. From Labrador and Nova Scotia west to the 

 Rocky mountains, then north\yard along the mountain ranges to Alaska. 

 In New England, confined to Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. 



WOOD — Close-grained, light, soft and weak, pale brown with light- 

 er colored sapwood oi 15-20 layers of annual growth; of little economic 

 value. The very astringent bark and berries are employed medicinally. 



