The
rowans or
mountain-ashes are shrubs or trees in the genus
Sorbus of the rose family
Rosaceae. They are native throughout the cool temperate regions of the
Northern Hemisphere, with the highest species diversity in the mountains of western
China and the
Himalaya, where numerous
apomictic microspecies occur.
[1] The name
rowan was originally applied to the species
Sorbus aucuparia and is also used for other species in the
Sorbus subgenus
Sorbus.
[2] Rowans are unrelated to the true ash trees, which belong to the
genus Fraxinus, family
Oleaceae, though their leaves are superficially similar.
Formerly, when a wider variety of fruits were commonly eaten in Europe and North America,
Sorbus was a domestically used fruit throughout these regions. It is still used in some countries, but
Sorbus domestica, for example, is now all but extinct in Britain, where it was traditionally revered.
[3] Natural hybrids, often including
Sorbus aucuparia and the whitebeam,
Sorbus aria, give rise to many
endemic variants in the UK.
[4]
The traditional names of the rowan are those applied to the species
Sorbus aucuparia,
Sorbus torminalis (wild service-tree), and
Sorbus domestica (true service-tree). The Latin name
sorbus was borrowed into
Old English as
syrfe. The name "service-tree" for
Sorbus domestica is derived from that name by
folk etymology. The Latin name
sorbus is from a root for "red, reddish-brown" (
PIE *sor-/*ser-); English
sorb is attested from the 1520s in the sense "fruit of the service tree", adopted via French
sorbe from Latin
sorbum "service-berry".
Sorbus domestica is also known as "whitty pear", the adjective whitty meaning "
pinnate". The name "mountain-ash" for
Sorbus domestica is due to a superficial similarity of the rowan leaves to those of the
ash, not to be confused in
Fraxinus ornus, a true ash that is also known as "mountain ash".
[5] Sorbus torminalis is also known as "chequer tree"; its fruits, formerly used to flavour beer, are called "chequers", perhaps from the spotted pattern of the fruit.
The name "rowan" is recorded from 1804, detached from an earlier rowan-tree, rountree, attested from the 1540s in northern dialects of English and
Scots. It is from a
North Germanic source (such as
Middle Norwegian), derived from Old Norse
reynir (c.f. Norwegian
rogn, Danish
røn, Swedish
rönn), ultimately from the
Germanic verb
*raud-inan "to redden", in reference to the berries (as is the Latin name
sorbus). Various dialectal variants of
rowan are found in English, including
ran, roan, rodan, royan, royne, round, rune.
[citation needed]
The
Old English name of the rowan is
cwic-beám, which survives in the name quickbeam (also quicken, quicken-tree, and variants). This name by the 19th century was reinterpreted as connected to the word
witch, from a dialectal variant
wick for quick and names such as wicken-tree, wich-tree, wicky, wiggan-tree, giving rise to names such as witch-hazel
[6] and witch-tree.
[7]
The
Old Irish name is
cairtheand, reflected in Modern Irish
caorann. The "arboreal"
Bríatharogam in the
Book of Ballymote associates the rowan with the letter
luis, with the gloss "delightful to the eye (
li sula) is
luis, i.e. rowan (
caertheand), owing to the beauty of its berries". Due to this, "delight of the eye" (vel sim.) has been reported as a "name of the rowan" by some commentators.
[who?]
In the
Canadian provinces of
Newfoundland and Labrador and
Nova Scotia, this species is commonly referred to as a "dogberry" tree.
[8] In
German,
Sorbus aucupariais known as the
Vogelbeerbaum ("bird-berry tree") or as
Eberesche. The latter is a compound of the name of the
ash tree (
Esche) with what is contemporarily the name of the boar (
Eber), but in fact the continuation of a
Gaulish name,
eburo- (also the name for a dark reddish-brown colour, cognate with Greek
orphnos, Old Norse
iarpr"brown"); like
sorbus,
eburo- seems to have referred to the colour of the berries; it is also recorded as a Gaulish name for the
yew (which also has red berries), see also
Eburodunum (disambiguation). The Welsh name
criafol refers to the tree as "lamenting fruit", associating the red fruit with the blood of Christ, as Welsh tradition believed the Cross was carved from the wood of this tree.
Rowans are mostly small
deciduous trees 10–20 m tall, though a few are
shrubs. The
leaves are arranged alternately, and are
pinnate, with (7–)11–35 leaflets; a terminal leaflet is always present. The
flowers are borne in dense
corymbs; each flower is creamy white, and 5–10 mm across with five petals. The
fruit is a small
pome 4–8 mm diameter, bright orange or red in most species, but pink, yellow or white in some Asian species. The fruit are soft and juicy, which makes them a very good food for
birds, particularly
waxwings and
thrushes, which then distribute the rowan
seeds in their droppings.
[1] Due to their small size the fruits are often referred to as berries, but a
true berry is a
simple fruit produced from a single ovary, whereas a
pome is an
accessory fruit.
Mature European rowan tree
The best-known species is the European Rowan
Sorbus aucuparia, a small tree typically 4–12 m tall growing in a variety of habitats throughout northern
Europe and in
mountains in southern Europe and southwest
Asia. Its berries are a favourite food for many birds and are a traditional wild-collected food in
Britain and
Scandinavia. It is one of the hardiest
European trees, occurring to 71° north in
Vardø in Arctic
Norway, and has also become widely
naturalised in northern
North America.
The greatest diversity of form as well as the largest number of Rowan species is in
Asia, with very distinctive species such as Sargent's Rowan
Sorbus sargentiana with large leaves 20–35 cm long and 15–20 cm broad and very large corymbs with 200–500 flowers, and at the other extreme, Small-leaf Rowan
Sorbus microphylla with leaves 8–12 cm long and 2.5–3 cm broad. While most are trees, the Dwarf Rowan
Sorbus reducta is a low
shrub to 50 cm tall. Several of the Asian species are widely cultivated as ornamental trees.
North American native species in the
subgenus Sorbus (Sorbus) include the American mountain-ash
Sorbus americana and Showy mountain-ash
Sorbus decora in the east and Sitka mountain-ash
Sorbus sitchensis in the west.
Numerous
hybrids, mostly behaving as true species reproducing by
apomixis, occur between rowans and
whitebeams; these are variably intermediate between their parents but generally more resemble whitebeams and are usually grouped with them (q.v.).
Selected species[edit]
- Sorbus alnifolia, Korean whitebeam
- Sorbus amabilis
- Sorbus americana, American mountain-ash
- Sorbus aria, European whitebeam
- Sorbus aucuparia, European rowan
- Sorbus californica
- Sorbus cashmiriana, Kashmir rowan
- Sorbus commixta, Japanese rowan
- Sorbus decora, Showy mountain-ash
- Sorbus esserteauiana, Esserteau's rowan
- Sorbus fosteri
- Sorbus fruticosa
- Sorbus glabrescens, White-fruited rowan
- Sorbus harrowiana, Harrow rowan
- Sorbus hupehensis, Hubei rowan
- Sorbus insignis
- Sorbus khumbuensis
- Sorbus koehneana
- Sorbus lanata
- Sorbus matsumurana
- Sorbus maderensis, Madeira rowan
- Sorbus microphylla, Small-leaf rowan
- Sorbus oligodonta, Kite-leaf rowan
- Sorbus pallescens
- Sorbus pekinensis
- Sorbus pinnatifida
- Sorbus pluripinnata
- Sorbus pohuashanensis
- Sorbus pontica
- Sorbus poteriifolia
- Sorbus prattii
- Sorbus pseudovilmorinii
- Sorbus pygmaea
- Sorbus randaiensis
- Sorbus redliana
- Sorbus reducta, Dwarf rowan
- Sorbus rehderiana
- Sorbus retroflexis
- Sorbus rockii
- Sorbus rotundifolia
- Sorbus rufo-ferruginea
- Sorbus rufopilosa, Tsema rowan
- Sorbus sargentiana, Sargent's rowan
- Sorbus scalaris, Ladder rowan
- Sorbus scopulina, Greene mountain-ash (var. scopulina) or Cascade mountain-ash (var. cascadensis)
- Sorbus simonkaiana
- Sorbus sitchensis, Sitka mountain-ash
- Sorbus stankovii
- Sorbus taurica
- Sorbus ursina
- Sorbus vertesensis
- Sorbus vestita
- Sorbus vilmorinii, Vilmorin's rowan
- Sorbus wardii
- Sorbus wilfordii
Rowans are excellent small ornamental trees for
parks,
gardens and
wildlife areas. Several of the Chinese species, such as White-fruited rowan (
Sorbus glabrescens) are popular for their unusual fruit colour, and Sargent's rowan (
Sorbus sargentiana) for its exceptionally large clusters of fruit. Numerous
cultivars have also been selected for garden use, several of them, such as the yellow-fruited
Sorbus 'Joseph Rock', of hybrid origin.
[1] They are very attractive to fruit-eating birds, which is reflected in the old name "bird catcher".
The
wood is dense and used for carving and turning and for tool handles and walking sticks.
[9] Rowan fruit are a traditional source of
tannins for
mordanting vegetable dyes.
[10] In Finland, it has been a traditional wood of choice for horse sled shafts and rake spikes.
The fruit of
European Rowan (
Sorbus aucuparia) can be made into a slightly bitter
jelly which in
Britain is traditionally eaten as an accompaniment to
game, and into
jams and other preserves, on their own, or with other fruit. The fruit can also be a substitute for
coffee beans, and has many uses in
alcoholic beverages: to flavour
liqueurs and
cordials, to produce
country wine, and to flavour
ale. In
Austria a clear rowan schnapps is distilled which is called by its German name
Vogelbeerschnaps. Czechs also make a Rowan liquor called
jeřabinka[11] and the Welsh used to make one called
diodgriafel.
[12]
Rowan
cultivars with superior fruit for human food use are available but not common; mostly the fruits are gathered from wild trees growing on public lands.
[citation needed]
Rowan fruit contains
sorbic acid, an acid that takes its name from the Latin name of the genus
Sorbus. The raw fruit also contain
parasorbic acid (about 0.4%-0.7% in the European rowan
[13]), which causes
indigestion and can lead to
kidney damage, but
heat treatment (
cooking, heat-
drying etc.) and, to a lesser extent, freezing, neutralises it, by changing it to the benign sorbic acid. Luckily, they are also usually too astringent to be palatable when raw. Collecting them after first frost (or putting in the freezer) cuts down on the bitter taste as well.
Mythology and folklore[edit]
The European rowan (
Sorbus aucuparia) has a long tradition in European mythology and folklore. It was thought to be a magical tree and give protection against malevolent beings.
[14] The tree was also called "wayfarer's tree" or "traveller's tree" because it supposedly prevents those on a journey from getting lost.
[15] It was said in England that this was the tree on which the Devil hanged his mother.
[16]
British folklorists of the
Victorian era reported the folk belief in
apotropaic powers of the rowan-tree, in particular in the warding off of witches. Such a report is given by
Edwin Lees (1856) for the
Wyre Forest in the English
West Midlands.
[17] Sir James Frazer (1890) reported such a tradition in Scotland, where the tree was often planted near a gate or front door.
[18] According to Frazer, birds' droppings often contain rowan seeds, and if such droppings land in a fork or hole where old leaves have accumulated on a larger tree, such as an
oak or a
maple, they may result in a rowan growing as an
epiphyte on the larger tree. Such a rowan is called a "flying rowan" and was thought of as especially potent against witches and their
magic, and as a counter-charm against sorcery.
[19] In 1891,
Charles Godfrey Leland also reported traditions of rowan's apotropaic powers against witches in English folklore, citing the
Denham Tracts (collected between 1846 and 1859).
[20]
In
Norse mythology, the goddess
Sif is the wife of the thunder god
Thor. Sif has been linked with
Ravdna, the consort of the
Sami thunder-god
Horagalles. Red berries of rowan were holy to Ravdna, and the name
Ravdna resembles North Germanic words for the tree (for example, Old Norse
reynir). According to
Skáldskaparmál the rowan is called "the salvation of Thor" because Thor once saved himself by clinging to it. It has been theorized that Sif was once conceived in the form of a rowan to which Thor clung.
[21]
In
Neo-Druidry, the Rowan is known as the Portal Tree. It is considered the threshold, between this world and otherworld, or between here and where ever you may be going, for example, it was placed at the gate to a property, signifying the crossing of the threshold between the path or street and the property of someone. According to Elen Sentier, in her book,
[22] "Threshold is a place of both INGRESS (the way in) and EGRESS (the way out). Rowan is a portal, threshold tree offering you the chance of 'going somewhere ... and leaving somewhere."
[23]
In
Newfoundland, popular folklore maintains that a heavy crop of fruit means a hard or difficult winter. Similarly, in Finland and Sweden, the number of fruit on the trees was used as a predictor of the
snow cover during
winter, but here the belief was that the rowan "will not bear a heavy load of fruit and a heavy load of snow in the same year", that is, a heavy fruit crop predicted a winter with little snow.
However, as fruit production for a given summer is related to weather conditions the previous
summer, with warm, dry summers increasing the amount of stored sugars available for subsequent flower and fruit production, it has no predictive relationship to the weather of the next winter.
[24][25]
In
Malax, Finland the reverse was thought.
[26] If the rowan flowers were plentiful then the rye harvest would also be plentiful.
[citation needed] Similarly, if the rowan flowered twice in a year there would be many potatoes and many weddings that autumn.
[citation needed] And in
Sipoo people are noted as having said that winter had begun when the
waxwings (
Bombycilla garrulus) had eaten the last of the rowan fruit.
[27]
In Sweden, it was also thought that if the rowan trees grew pale and lost color, the fall and winter would bring much illness.
[28]
See also[edit]