A woodland tree with maple-like lobed leaves that turn rich coppery red, round green pea-like buds and square-plated bark
Wild service tree.
Nature · Trees
Wild service tree
Native · deciduous, to 25 m · flowers late spring · ancient oak and ash woods on clay and lime
Sorbus torminalis — Rosaceae
A rare native tree of old woods on clay and limestone, wild service tree has maple-like lobed leaves that turn coppery red in autumn. Its brown speckled fruits, called chequers, were once sold as sweets and may have named the Chequers inns. It is an ancient-woodland indicator, so finding one suggests a very old wood.
How to know it
How to spot them
- ▸Maple-like leaves with three to four unequal pairs of pointed lobes, colouring coppery red
- ▸Bark brown and cracked into square plates
- ▸Round green pea-like buds, not hairy
- ▸Clusters of white flowers in late spring; green-brown oval fruits 10–15 mm speckled with pale dots
- ▸Sends up suckers
How to know it
Speckled brown fruits called chequers, said to taste like dates and once given to children as sweets
Wild service tree.
A tree whose fruit may have inspired the name of Chequers inns
Wild service tree — Woodland Trust says it is unclear which came first.
Fruit that must be "bletted" by frost or decay before it is edible; used to flavour whisky
Wild service tree.
Its presence in an oak-and-ash wood on clay signals ancient woodland
Wild service tree — an ancient-woodland indicator.
Torminalis, from the Latin for colic, refers to its old medicinal use; the leaves look like field maple's but are less distinctly lobed
Wild service tree (Sorbus torminalis).
Quick-fire facts
- •Sorbus torminalis: torminalis relates to Latin tormina, colic pains, for which the fruit was used
- •Woodland Trust: an ancient-woodland indicator
- •Rare, found in oak and ash woods and pockets of ancient woodland, best on clay and lime-based soils
- •Leaves look like field maple (Acer campestre) but are not as distinctly lobed
- •The fruit needs bletting through freezing to become edible and was on sale about a century ago
- •Fruits may lie behind the name of Chequers inns
- •It can spread by suckers
- •Prone to silver leaf disease and fireblight
Drill it — 7 cards
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Sources
- Woodland Trust — Wild service tree (Sorbus torminalis)