In Sussex, Sir E. Loder knows it as an uncommon hedgerow tree of no great size, and Mr. Stephenson Clarke, of Borde Hill, also tells me that it occurs there, and more commonly in the Isle of Wight, where, in Bridlesford Copse, Woolton, a wood of about 200 acres, are perhaps two dozen old trees, which differ in appearance from the Sussex ones in assuming a somewhat pendulous habit of branching when well grown. I find no mention of the occurrence of the tree in the New Forest, and the Hon. G. W. Lascelles does not know it there.
We have no record of Pyrus torminalis as a planted tree in Scotland, except that the Rev. Dr. Landsborough[1] notes a tree in vigorous health in Bellfield Avenue, Kilmarnock, which was 2 feet 9 inches in girth in 1893. He calls it the English service tree or table rowan, and adds that, in spite of its Latin name, the fruit is pleasant. In Ireland the tree is very rare. Henry saw, however, a fine specimen in 1903, at Adare, Limerick, which measured 53 feet by 5 feet 10 inches.
The fruit is ripe late in October, when it falls, if not previously eaten by birds, and the seeds, which only seem to mature in warm summers, should be sown at once, or kept in sand exposed to the weather and sown in spring, when they will germinate the next year. Seedlings raised by me from seed gathered at Les Barres, France, which were sown 7th July 1902, germinated 9th March 1903, and were on 14th October 1904 1 to 2 feet high. The leaves turn a reddish yellow in autumn, when the tree is decidedly ornamental, though, on account of its slow growth, it does not seem to have any value as a forest tree, and is rarely procurable from nurserymen in this country.
Timber
Pyrus torminalis is unknown as a timber tree in the trade owing to its scarcity, and is mentioned by Boulger[2] only as "a small tree, sometimes 30 feet high, with wood practically identical in character and uses with that of the rowan." Stone does not mention it at all, and Marshall Ward, in his edition of Laslett, says nothing worth quoting.
I am indebted to Mr. Stephenson Clarke for a log of the timber, which resembles that of the whitebeam tree, being hard, heavy, and, according to Loudon, weighing, when dry, 48 lbs. per cubic foot.
Mr. Weale, of Liverpool, reports as follows on a sample of this wood which I sent him:—"Of a hardness between true service tree and whitebeam. Rays on transverse section just visible, a little narrower than sycamore, but wood generally exhibits similar characters. Takes a good finish, but this is not lasting, the ring boundaries rising after exposure. Seasons fairly well, shrinks a little, and rather inclined to twist."
Evelyn says that "the timber of the sorb is useful to the joiner, of which I have seen a room curiously wainscotted; also to the engraver of woodcuts, and for most that the wild pear tree serves."(H.J.E.)
