106 FAMILIAR TREES 



A native of the mountains of Greece — where it 

 seems to have borne the name of Aria in the time of 

 Theophrastus, the pupil of Aristotle — and most of the 

 countries of Europe, except the extreme north, it 

 occurs commonly in such exposed situations as to 

 deserve well the name Sorbus alpi'na applied to it 

 by Bauhin. But though on Kentish downs, on ex- 

 posed slopes of the Chiltern Hills, or waving from 

 the limestone crags of the gorge of the Wye, or 

 even from the ruined arches of Tintern, it is little 

 more than a bush, and not more than four or five 

 feet high, in more sheltered spots it becomes a tree 

 thirty to forty feet in height, with a single smooth 

 bole reaching three or four feet in girth, and with 

 ascending slender branches giving it a graceful 

 pyramidal outline of head. 



The species extends beyond Europe into Northern 

 and Western Asia and North Africa, and has been 

 recorded from more than one spot in Teneriffe, where 

 it is apparently indigenous. In the British Isles the 

 typical form of the species occurs only in the Midland 

 and Southern counties of England and in Ireland, 

 being represented in Scotland and in Cornwall by 

 allied but tolerably distinct forms. On the Yorkshire 

 mountains it ascends to an altitude of 1,500 feet ; 

 and in its structure it exhibits several characteristic 

 adaptations for protection against cold. 



The old bark is reddish-brown and smooth ; but 

 the young shoots are covered with a white mealy 

 down. The twigs later on become smooth, and have 

 a shining surface of a warm reddish or olive brown, 

 marked with conspicuous round lenticels or cork- 



