SORBUS, the SERVICE TREE; a genus of the trigynia order, belonging to the icolandria class of plants. There are three species. 1. The aucuparia, mountain-ash, quicken-tree, quick-beam, or roan-tree, rises with a straight upright stem and regular branching head, twenty or thirty feet high or more, covered with a smooth greyish brown bark; pinnated leaves of eight or ten pair of long, narrow, serrated folioles, and an odd one, smooth on both sides; and large umbellate clusters of white flowers at the sides and ends of the branches, succeeded by clusters of fine red berries, ripe in autumn and winter. There is a variety yellow striped leaved. This species grows wild in many parts of this island, on mountainous places, woods, and hedge rows, often arriving to the growth of timber; and is admitted in most ornamental plantations, for the beauty of its growth, foliage, flowers, and fruit; the latter, in particular, being produced in numerous red large bunches all over the tree, exhibited a fine appearance in autumn and winter, till devoured by the birds, especially the blackbird and thrush, which are so allured by these fruit as to flock from all parts and feed on them voraciously. 2. The domestica, or cultivated service-tree, with eatable fruit, grows with an upright stem, branching thirty or forty feet high or more, having a brownish bark, and the young shoots in summer covered with a mealy down; pinnated leaves of eight or ten pair of broadish deeply serrated lobes and an odd one, downy underneath, and large umbellate clusters of white flowers at the sides and ends of the branches, succeeded by bunches of large, fleshy, edible red fruit, of various shapes and sizes in the varieties. This tree is a native of the southern warm parts of Europe, where its fruit is in high esteem to serve up in desserts, and is cultivated here in many of our gardens, both as a fruit-tree and to diversify hardy plantations. 3. The hebrida, or mongrel service-tree of Gothland, grows twenty or thirty feet high, it has half pinnated leaves, very downy underneath; and clusters of white flowers, succeeded by bunches of round reddish berries in autumn.
As to the merit of these trees in gardening, they all demand culture in every eminent shrubbery and other hardy plantations; being introduced as standards, they will effect a fine variety in assemblage, with their elegant pinnated leaves and clusters of flowers and fruit: the wild service particularly should be plentifully interspersed in all extensive shrubberies, for the singularity of their numerous clusters of berries in autumn and winter, which also prove food to encourage plenty of singing birds in the plantations. But the sorbus aucuparia may also be introduced as a forest-tree in timber plantations; and being mostly all heart, is valued for many purposes.
They are all easily propagated, by seed, in the open ground; also by layers, though the seedlings generally make the handsomest plants.