Sorbus

Sorbus is a genus of the Rosaceae family that includes between 100 and 200 species of trees and shrubs, commonly called rowan. They are often used in parks and gardens as an ornamental plant and its fruits are used in the manufacture of Russian vodka.

Sorbus species are used as food by larvae of some Lepidoptera species.

According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, sorbus are particularly threatened: three-quarters of Europe's 170 species of sorbus are considered endangered.

Description

Roans are generally small, deciduous trees 10–20 m tall, although a few are shrubs or woody plants. The leaves are alternately arranged and pinnate in character, with 11 to 35 leaflets. The flowers are resistant and cluster in dense panicles; each flower, in particular, acquires, in its maturity, a creamy color, from 5 to 10 mm in its five petals.

The best known species is the European rowan (Sorbus aucuparia), a small tree between 4 and 16 m tall, which grows in a variety of habitats throughout northern Europe and in the southern mountains of the same continent.

Distribution and habitat

The members of this genus are endemic to cold and temperate regions of the northern hemisphere, with a large number of diverse species, especially in the mountains of western China and the Himalayas, where there are also large numbers of apomictic microspecies. Its geographical distribution covers all of Europe, Siberia and the Caucasus. In Spain it is found in forests and hedgerows, in all, or almost all, of the mountains in the northern half. It is a very rare species in Valencia and Mallorca.

They live at altitudes up to 2000 m a.s.l. no. m., resisting low temperatures, in beech, oak and fir forests. They grow well in soils with any pH, although they prefer siliceous soils if they are loose and fresh. They live both in full sun and in the semi-shade of other trees.

Taxonomy

The exact number of species is disputed by different authorities due to the number of apomictic microspecies, which are treated by some as distinct species, but others group them into a smaller number of variable species (depending on the circumscription of the genus).

Recent treatments of the genus (Robertson et al. 1991, McAllister 2005) consider Sorbus in a more restricted sense to include only those species of Sorbus with pinnate leaves., elevating some of the other subgenres to genre rank.

Considered in a broad sense, the genus Sorbus is divided into several small subgenera (in parentheses are the most recent assignments to the genus rank):

1. Sorbus subgenus Sorbus (genus) Sorbus)
2. Sorbus subgenus Aria (genus) Aria)
3. Sorbus subgenus Micromeles (genus) Aria)
4. Sorbus subgenus Cormus (genus) Cormus)
5. Sorbus subgenus Torminaria (genus) Torminaria)
6. Sorbus subgenus Chamaemespilus (genus) Chamaemespilus)

• Hybrid: they are very common in this genre, many are among the subgeners. Very often these hybrids are apomitic (self-fertiles without pollination), so they are able to reproduce clonally from the seeds without any variation. This has led to a very large number of microspecies, particularly in Eastern Europe and parts of China.

Some of the species

• Sorbus aria "Mostajo or serbal white"
• Sorbus aucuparia "Serbal of hunters"
• Sorbus domestica "Common Serbal"
• Sorbus torminalis Wilderness
• Intermediate bus "Serbal of Sweden"