Servicetree

Cormus domestica, the service tree or true service-tree (long known as Sorbus domestica), is a deciduous tree in the family Rosaceae native to southern and central Europe, North Africa, the Caucasus, and western Asia, with relict populations in southern Britain. It is a slow-growing long-lived tree reaching 10-20 m in height, with a rounded open crown, a stout trunk, and characteristic scaly reddish-brown bark that splits into small rectangular plates resembling that of the pear. Leaves are alternate, odd-pinnate, 15-25 cm long, with 11-21 leaflets, each leaflet oblong-lanceolate, sharply serrate above the middle, glabrous and dark green above and softly hairy and paler beneath, the foliage resembling that of the closely related Sorbus aucuparia. The inflorescence is a broad terminal corymb 10-15 cm across of many small white five-petalled flowers, each 1-1.5 cm wide, appearing in late spring. The fruit is a small apple-shaped or pear-shaped pome 2-3 cm long, ripening from green to yellow-brown often flushed reddish, hard, gritty, and very astringent when freshly ripe but becoming mellow, soft, and brownish after bletting (over-ripening through frost or storage), at which stage it is edible and historically important as a fruit.