The New Zealand Plant Conservation Network

Species

Sorbus aucuparia subsp. aucuparia

Common Name(s)

rowan

Family

Rosaceae

Flora Category

Vascular - Exotic

Structural Class

Dicotyledonous Trees & Shrubs

Habitat

Terrestrial.

Features

Tree up to 8m high, usu. with an erect trunk and spreading branches; young shoots pilose, sometimes densely so, but soon becoming glabrate. Buds large; outer scales glabrous, purplish, inner scales densely covered with white hairs towards apex. Leaves imparpinnate with up to 8 pairs of leaflets; petiole 20~35mm long, green or brown to purplish, pilose, but hairs deciduous, sometimes with stalked glands; leaflets narrowly oblong or oblong-elliptic, sometimes lanceolate-elliptic, 30~50 x 8~20mm, obtuse to acute, mostly sessile, deep green and glabrous or finely hairy above, paler and finely to densely pilose below, serrate along whole length or sometimes in upper 2/3 only; leaflets of juvenile plants and suckering shoots narrowly elliptic to elliptic-ovate, deeply and jaggedly toothed; stipules generally deciduous, small, acuminate. Infl. drooping, up to approx. 120 mm across; pedicels and branchlets white-villous, becoming glabrate by fruiting. Sepal lobes broadly triangular, .6~1.3mm diam., generally orbicular with abbreviated claw, white. Fruit depressed-globose, sometimes oblong-obovoid, 5~10mm diam., deep orange to scarlet, sometimes crimson, glossy. (-Webb et. al., 1988)

Similar Taxa

Tree up to 8m high with erect trunk and spreading branches; 8 pairs of leaflets serrate along whole length or upper 2/3; white petals; deep orange to scarlet, glossy fruit (Webb et al., 1988).

Flowering

October, November

Flower Colours

White

Fruiting

January to April

Year Naturalised

1904

Origin

Eurasia

This page last updated on 18 Jan 2010