The Mountain Ashes - Family Rosaceae

THE MOUNTAIN ASHES - FAMILY ROSACEAE. Genus SORBUS, Linn. Small trees of good habit, with ornamental foliage, flowers and fruit. Leaves alternate, 7 to 17 leaflets, serrate. Flowers small, white, in many-flowered flat corymbs. Fruit small, red, berry-like. KeY TO SPECIES A. Buds sticky; shoots smooth.

B. Leaflets taper pointed, pale green.

(S. Americana) AMERICAN MOUNTAIN As BB. Leaflets abruptly pointed, dark green.

(S. sambucifolia) ELDER-LEAVED Mountain ASH AA. Buds woolly; branchlets and petioles pubescent; leaflets blunt pointed, dull green. (Exotic.) (S. Aucuparia) EUROPEAN MOUNTAIN ASH Or ROWAN TREE The handsome foliage and showy clusters of flowers and fruits make this a favourite genus of trees and shrubs for orna mental planting. There are about thirty species of Sorbus, widely distributed over the Northern Hemisphere and chiefly inhabitants of mountain slopes. Their contentment with poor soil and exposed situations make them valuable for the covering of broken ground, where they show to the best advantage. In autumn the red berries are matched by the ruddy foliage. Birds often depend on the berries for food in snowy winters. On a lawn a mountain ash is a neat and very decorative little tree at all seasons.

Mountain Ash

(Sorbus Americana, Marsh.)—A small tree, attaining 3o feet, with slender spreading branches, forming pyramidal head. Bark smooth, brown or grey, with large lenticels like those on cherry; taste bitter. Wood pale brown, close grained, weak. Buds reddish, pointed, glutinous. Leaves pinnate, 6 to 12 inches long, alternate; petioles red; leaflets 13 to 17, lanceo late, dark yellow-green, pale beneath. Flowers creamy white, perfect, small, in broad, compound, flat-topped corymbs, after the leaves in May and June. Fruit small, scarlet, berry-like, with thin flesh and bony seeds. Ripe in September and hang on all winter. Preferred habitat, rich, moist soil. Distribution, New foundland to Manitoba; south along mountains to Tennessee and North Carolina. Uses: Planted for its red berries and fern-like foliage. Fruit used in home remedies.

The way to see our American mountain ash at its best is to take a leisurely October drive through the wooded uplands of New Eng land or lower Canada. Along the borders of swamps, or climbing

the rocky bluffs, with the wild plums and the straggling beeches, this frail scarlet-berried ash leaps up like a yellow flame, and the broad discs of its fruit gleam among the leaves like red embers in a grate. There is no handsomer leaf at any season than this one, on its red stem, its pointed leaflets dainty and slim as a willow's.

I have wondered that people prefer to plant in their gardens the European species. But I find it is not all the deep-seated craving for imported things. The American tree languishes in warm, dry climates and in the protected situations we are apt to choose. It shows a distinct preference for cold, unsheltered places, exposed to winds, where its growth is stunted. Though its range extends into the Southern States, it always keeps to high altitudes.

The Mountain Ash (Sorbus sasnbucifolia, Rcem.) is even more daring in its fight with the elements. It climbs higher on the mountains, and ranges from Labrador to Alaska, following the Rocky Mountains to Colorado. In the East, it goes no farther south than Pennsylvania. The same species inhabits Japan and eastern China, This species has showier flowers and fruit clusters than S. Americana. In the large area where their ranges overlap, these two can be best distinguished by their leaves. "this Western moun tain ash has darker green foliage, of abruptly pointed leaflets. The fruits have five large, erect calyx points at the blossom end. These points are small on the berries of the other species, and are bent inward until they lie flat.

All through the summer the graceful, elder-like foliage of the Western mountain ash makes it a tropical-looking tree among its north temperate forest neighbours, though it is rarely more than 15 feet in height. Its open, pyramidal head gives each leaf a chance. After the leaves have fallen, the twigs still hold up their broad discs of scarlet berries that cling until winter is well past.