Identification
In summer the tree is only liable to be confused with the mountain ash and its allies. The bark is, however, different, being rough, scaly, and dark-coloured in the true service tree, smooth and grey in Pyrus Aucuparia, etc. In Pyrus Sorbus the leaflets at the base are practically symmetrical, and their serration is very acute. Buds if present are the best distinction, as explained below.[1] In winter Pyrus Sorbus is distinguished by the following characters, shown in Plate 45:—
Twigs: long shoots glabrous, round; leaf-scars, crescentic with 5 bundle dots, set parallel to the twig on projecting cushions. Terminal buds larger, side buds coming off at an acute angle; all ovoid, densely viscid, shining, generally pubescent at the tip. Bud scales few in number, greenish, sometimes reddened, viscid, quite glabrous, the margin without cilia. Short shoots ringed, glabrous, ending in a terminal bud. The viscid greenish buds, 5-dotted leaf-scars, and rough scaly bark, distinguish this species from other kinds of Pyrus.
Distribution
The Service tree is largely cultivated in central and southern Europe; and in many places, where it is recorded as wild, is really only an escape from cultivation. It is met with in the forests of France which rest upon limestone; but in the north and east it does not produce fruit every year, and is doubtfully wild except in the south and west. Willkomm considers it to be wild in the southern parts of the Austrian empire (Dalmatia, Croatia, Banat, Carniola, and South Tyrol), in the valley of the Moselle, in the Jura and Switzerland; also in southern Europe and Algeria. In France it is occasionally met with as a standard in coppiced woods.
Mouillefert says that the tree may live to be 500 or 600 years old, and that it was uninjured by the severe frost of 1879–80, when the thermometer fell to –25° Reaumur. He says, also, that it prefers a rich calcareous soil, but will grow on sand if not too dry.(A.H.)
Remarkable Trees
Pyrus Sorbus is not a native of Britain, though a single specimen which grew in a remote part of Wyre Forest in Worcestershire was long considered to give it a claim to be introduced into the British flora. This tree was mentioned in the Philosophical Transactions[2] as long ago as 1678 by Mr. Pitt, who says that he found it in the preceding year as a rarity growing wild in a forest of Worcester, and identifies it with the Sorbus pyriformis of L'Obelius, a tree not noticed by any preceding writer as a native of England. Pitt says nothing about the size of the tree, merely observing: "It resembles the Ornus or quicken tree, only the Ornus bears the flower
