The rowans ( ROW-ənz or ROH-ənz) or mountain-ashes are shrubs or trees in the genus Sorbus of the rose family, Rosaceae. They are native throughout the cool temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere, with the highest species diversity in the Himalaya, southern Tibet and parts of western China, where numerous apomictic microspecies occur. The name rowan was originally applied to the species Sorbus aucuparia and is also used for other species in the genus Sorbus. Natural hybrids, often including S. aucuparia and the whitebeam, Aria edulis (syn. Sorbus aria), give rise to many endemic variants in the UK.
Names
The Latin name sorbus was borrowed into Old English as syrfe. The Latin name sorbus is from a root for 'red, reddish-brown' (Proto-Indo-European: *sor-/*ser-); English sorb is attested from the 1520s in the sense 'fruit of the service tree', adopted via French sorbe from Latin sorbum 'service-berry'. Sorbus domestica is also known as "whitty pear", the adjective whitty meaning "pinnate". The name "mountain-ash" for Sorbus domestica is due to a superficial similarity of the rowan leaves to those of the ash, not to be confused with Fraxinus ornus, a true ash that is also known as "mountain ash". Sorbus torminalis is also known as "chequer tree"; its fruits, formerly used to flavour beer, are called "chequers", perhaps from the spotted pattern of the fruit. The traditional name rowan was applied to the species Sorbus aucuparia. The name rowan is recorded from 1804, detached from an earlier rowan-tree, rountree, attested from the 1540s in northern dialects of English and Scots. It is often thought to be from a North Germanic source, perhaps related to Old Norse reynir (compare Norwegian rogn, Danish røn, Swedish rönn), ultimately from the Germanic verb *raud-inan 'to redden', in reference to the berries (as is the Latin name sorbus). Various dialectal variants of rowan are found in English, including ran, roan, rodan, royan, royne, round, and rune. The Old English name of the rowan is cwic-bēam, which survives in the name quickbeam (also quicken, quicken-tree, and variants). This name by the 19th century was reinterpreted as connected to the word witch, from a dialectal variant wick for quick and names such as wicken-tree, wich-tree, wicky, and wiggan-tree, giving rise to names such as witch-hazel and witch-tree. The tree has two names in Welsh, cerdinen and criafol. Criafol may be translated as 'the lamenting fruit', likely derived from the Welsh tradition that the Cross of Christ was carved from the wood of this tree, and the subsequent association of the rowan's red fruit with the blood of Christ. The Old Irish name is cairtheand, reflected in Modern Irish caorthann. The "arboreal" Bríatharogam in the Book of Ballymote associates the rowan with the letter luis, with the gloss "delightful to the eye (li sula) is luis, i.e. rowan (caertheand), owing to the beauty of its berries". Due to this, "delight of the eye" (vel sim.) has been reported as a "name of the rowan" by some commentators. The most common Scottish Gaelic name is caorann (Scottish Gaelic pronunciation: [/kɯːrən/]), which appears in numerous Highland place names such as Beinn a' Chaorainn and Loch a' Chaorainn. Rowan was also the clan badge of the Malcolms and McLachlans. There were strong taboos in the Highlands against the use of any parts of the tree save the berries, except for ritual purposes. For example, a Gaelic threshing tool made of rowan and called a buaitean was used on grain meant for rituals and celebrations. In the Canadian provinces of Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia, this species is commonly referred to as a dogberry tree. In German, Sorbus aucuparia is known as the Vogelbeerbaum ('bird-berry tree') or as Eberesche. The latter is a compound of the name of the ash tree (Esche) with what is contemporarily the name of the boar (Eber), but in fact the continuation of a Gaulish name, eburo- (also the name for a dark reddish-brown colour, cognate with Greek ὀρφνός orphnos, Old Norse iarpr 'brown'); like sorbus, eburo- seems to have referred to the colour of the berries; it is also recorded as a Gaulish name for the yew (which also has red berries), see also Eburodunum (disambiguation).
Botany
Rowans are mostly small deciduous trees 10–20 metres (33–66 ft) tall, though a few are shrubs. Rowans are unrelated to the true ash trees of the genus Fraxinus, family Oleaceae. Though their leaves are superficially similar, those of Sorbus are alternate, while those of Fraxinus are opposite. Rowan leaves are arranged alternately, and are pinnate, with (7–)11–35 leaflets. A terminal leaflet is always present. The flowers are borne in dense corymbs; each flower is creamy white, and 5–10 millimetres (0.20–0.39 in) across with five petals. The fruit is a small pome 4–8 millimetres (0.16–0.31 in) diameter, bright orange or red in most species, but pink, yellow or white in some Asian species. The fruit are soft and juicy, which makes them a very good food for birds, particularly waxwings and thrushes, which then distribute the rowan seeds in their droppings. Due to their small size the fruits are often referred to as berries, but a true berry is a simple fruit produced from a single ovary, whereas a pome is an accessory fruit. Rowan is used as a food plant by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species.
The best-known species is the European rowan Sorbus aucuparia, a small tree typically 4–12 metres (13–39 ft) tall growing in a variety of habitats throughout northern Europe and in mountains in southern Europe and southwest Asia. Its berries are a favourite food for many birds and are a traditional wild-collected food in Britain and Scandinavia. It is one of the hardiest European trees, occurring to 71° north in Vardø Municipality in the far northern part of Arctic Norway, and has also become widely naturalised in northern North America.
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