Dwarf whitebeam

Description

Sorbus chamaemespilus, the false medlar or dwarf whitebeam, is a species of Sorbus native to the mountains of central and southern Europe, from the Pyrenees east through the Alps to the Carpathians and the Balkans, growing at altitudes of up to 2500 m. It is a deciduous shrub growing to 2–3 m tall. The leaves are spirally arranged, oval-elliptic, 3–7 cm long, with an acute apex and a serrated margin; they are green on both sides, without the white felting found on most whitebeams. The flowers are pink, with five forward-pointing petals 5–7 mm long; they are produced in corymbs 3–4 cm diameter. The fruit is an oval red pome 10–13 mm diameter. It is the sole species in a group that has been called genus Chamaemespilus or Sorbus subgenus Chamaemespilus, distinguished from other subgenera of Sorbus by the pink (not white) flowers with forward-pointing petals (not opening flat). More recently, it has become clear that the simple-leafed species traditionally included in Sorbus form a monophyletic group, and this species could be included in a clade called Aria (genus Aria or Sorbus subgenus Aria). Sorbus is a genus of over 100 species of trees and shrubs in the rose family, Rosaceae. Species of Sorbus are commonly known as whitebeam, rowan (mountain-ash) and service tree. The exact number of species is disputed depending on the circumscription of the genus, and also due to the number of apomictic microspecies, which some treat as distinct species, but others group in a smaller number of variable species. Recent treatments classify Sorbus in a narrower sense to include only the pinnate leaved species of subgenus Sorbus, raising several of the other subgenera to generic rank. Sorbus is not closely related to the true ash trees which belong to the genus Fraxinus, although the leaves are superficially similar.