Hi,

We have a mystery tree growing in our garden in Scotland. It started
as a twig with some other plants, but has grown to be about 10ft tall
now, but we've never been able to identify it.

It grows bunches of orangey-red berries in autumn - a bit like a Rowan,
but the leaves appear to be all wrong for that.

Not sure which country it's from or anything - any help or pointers
would be appreciated. Photos are he

http://www.seajays.org.uk/mysterytree/

Cheers,
Colin.

In message .com,
writes
Hi,

We have a mystery tree growing in our garden in Scotland. It started
as a twig with some other plants, but has grown to be about 10ft tall
now, but we've never been able to identify it.

It grows bunches of orangey-red berries in autumn - a bit like a Rowan,
but the leaves appear to be all wrong for that.

Not sure which country it's from or anything - any help or pointers
would be appreciated. Photos are he

http://www.seajays.org.uk/mysterytree/

Looks like some type of Whitebeam (same genus as the rowans). Skimming
Mitchell (Field Guide to the Trees of Britain and Northern Europe) the
Swedish Whitebeam, Sorbus intermedia, seems a fair match for the shape
of the leaves. (There's lots of species of Whitebeams, Rowans and
Service Trees, but none of the other commonly planted species have
leaves like this.)
--
Stewart Robert Hinsley

Stewart Robert Hinsley wrote:
In message .com,
writes
Hi,

We have a mystery tree growing in our garden in Scotland. It started
as a twig with some other plants, but has grown to be about 10ft tall
now, but we've never been able to identify it.

Looks like some type of Whitebeam (same genus as the rowans). Skimming
Mitchell (Field Guide to the Trees of Britain and Northern Europe) the
Swedish Whitebeam, Sorbus intermedia, seems a fair match for the shape
of the leaves. (There's lots of species of Whitebeams, Rowans and
Service Trees, but none of the other commonly planted species have
leaves like this.)

Thanks very much Stewart - that is most helpful. I looked up a few
pages on the net about Whitebeam after I got your message, and the one
you mentioned certainly seems to be a good match. There even seem to
be some varieties of Whitebeam specific to Scotland (however no
pictures of them that I could find). Thanks again for helping out with
this!

Colin.

Hi Colin

The flowers look very much like a Rowan (Sorbus) but i would have to see one close up to be sure... and the corymbs of berries sound correct too. The sorbus family arent all made up of trees with bipinnate leaves, some have 'whole' leaves like Sorbus aria.

Hope this helps

Matt

Mattt wrote:

The flowers look very much like a Rowan (Sorbus) but i would have to
see one close up to be sure... and the corymbs of berries sound correct
too. The sorbus family arent all made up of trees with bipinnate leaves,
some have 'whole' leaves like Sorbus aria.


Cheers Matt - a bigger image of the flowers is available he
http://www.seajays.org.uk/mysterytree/IMG0358.jpg

I think it looks like a pretty good match for the Sorbus intermedia
(Swedish Whitebeam) that Stewart had suggested. I never realised there
were such a lot of varieties of the Sorbus family.

http://www.the-tree.org.uk/BritishTr...amswedishc.htm

Thanks for the post.

Colin.