Sorbus torminalis

Trees, to 120[–200] dm. Stems 1; bark gray; winter buds green to brown, ovoid to ovoid-oblong, 5–10 mm, scales dark-margined, shiny, glutinous, glabrous, ciliate, or villous. Leaves simple; stipules early deciduous, whitish-villous; blade slightly shiny, green to dark green adaxially, ovate to broadly elliptic, 5.5–10.5 × 3–8 cm, margins deeply 1–4 subpalmately lobed, lobes ± triangular, (1–)1.5–2.5 cm wide, basal sinuses deepest, margins finely serrate, secondary veins in 4–6 main pairs, apex acute to acuminate, abaxial surface thinly white-hairy to glabrate, adaxial glabrous. Panicles 15–60+-flowered, rounded, 3–17.5 cm diam.; peduncles whitish-villous. Pedicels whitish-villous. Flowers 10–17 mm diam.; hypanthium densely villous, hypanthium plus sepals 5.5–7.5 mm; sepals 1.5–3.5 mm, margins villous and prominently glandular, glands often relatively thick; petals white, elliptic, broadly elliptic, or broadly ovate, 4–7 mm; stamens 20; carpels adnate to hypanthium, apex conic, styles 2, 3.5–4 mm. Infructescences sparsely whitish-villous. Pomes brown, narrowly obovoid, 15–19 × 10–13 mm, dull, not glaucous; lenticels abundant; sepals inconspicuous, incurved. Seeds brown, oblong-lanceoloid, 8.1 × 3.4 mm, slightly asymmetric, slightly flattened. 2n = 34, 68 (Europe).

Phenology: Flowering spring; fruiting fall.
Habitat: Disturbed conifer forests
Elevation: 0–50 m

Introduced; Wash., Europe, sw Asia, nw Africa.

Discussion

In European gardens, one or more clones of intergeneric hybrids between Pyrus communis and Sorbus are called ×Sorbopyrus auricularis (Knoop) C. K. Schneider. J. Wiśniewska et al. (1969) suggested that S. torminalis may be involved in the parentage of at least one clone.

Selected References

None.

Lower Taxa