278 



THE MOUNTAIN ASH. 



and habits^ it will continue to flourish for a cen- 

 tury or more. 



" The Mountain Ash 

 No eye can overlook, when *mid a grove 

 Of yet unfaded trees she lifts her head, 

 Deck'd vrith autumnal berries, that outshine 

 Spring's richest blossoms ; and ye may have marked 

 By a brook- side or solitary tarn, 

 How she her station doth adorn : the pool 

 Glows at her feet, and all the gloomy rocks 

 Are brightened round her." 



Wordsworth. 



The Mountain Ash is placed by most modern 

 botanists in the same genus with the Apple and 

 Pear^ the fruit of which it resembles in conforma- 

 tion.^ Others assign it a place with the Medlar, 

 {Mespilus) or make it and the group with which 

 it is connected a distinct genus {Sorhus), The 

 name Auciiparia (from auceps^ a fowler) indicates 

 the use to which its berries are applied by bird- 

 catchers in France and Germany, who bait their 

 traps with them as a certain lure for thrushes 

 and neld-fares. Its popular names are very nu- 

 merous : Mountain Ash, the commonest, is far 

 from correct, as it belongs to an entirely different 

 tribe from the Ash, which tree it resembles only 

 in its leaves ; Rowan, Roan, its common name 

 in Scotland, and various other forms of the same 

 word, occur in old authors. It is also called, 

 Quick-Beam, Wild or Fowler's Service-tree : 

 Service" appears to be a corruption of Sorbus, 

 the ancient Latin name of an allied species, Pyrus 

 sorhus, Witchen, AVicken, "Wiggen, &c. evidently 



* The Siherian Crab (Pyrus baccata) produces fruit which may 

 be considered as a connecting link between the berrs' of the Moun- 

 tain Ash and the Apple of Pyrus malus^ the common Apple-tree. 



