Can you help to identify this tree?

[seajays]

Hi,

We have a mystery tree growing in our garden in Scotland. It started as a twig with some other plants, but has grown to be about 10ft tall now, but we've never been able to identify it.

It grows bunches of orangey-red berries in autumn - a bit like a Rowan, but the leaves appear to be all wrong for that.

Not sure which country it's from or anything - any help or pointers would be appreciated. Photos are here:

Colin.

[Stewart Robert Hinsley]

In message , [e-mail] writes

Mitchell (Field Guide to the Trees of Britain and Northern Europe) the Swedish Whitebeam, Sorbus intermedia, seems a fair match for the shape of the leaves. (There's lots of species of Whitebeams, Rowans and Service Trees, but none of the other commonly planted species have leaves like this.)

[seajays]

Thanks very much Stewart - that is most helpful. I looked up a few pages on the net about Whitebeam after I got your message, and the one you mentioned certainly seems to be a good match. There even seem to be some varieties of Whitebeam specific to Scotland (however no pictures of them that I could find). Thanks again for helping out with this!

Colin.

[Mattt]

Hi Colin

The flowers look very much like a Rowan (Sorbus) but i would have t see one close up to be sure... and the corymbs of berries sound correc too. The sorbus family arent all made up of trees with bipinnate leaves some have 'whole' leaves like Sorbus aria.

Hope this helps

Mat

-- Mattt

[seajays]

Cheers Matt - a bigger image of the flowers is available here:

think it looks like a pretty good match for the Sorbus intermedia (Swedish Whitebeam) that Stewart had suggested. I never realised there were such a lot of varieties of the Sorbus family.

for the post.

Colin.