We moved into our house in November 2009 and on the 5 December of the same year there was a nationwide project called Tree O' Clock. At least 230,000 trees were planted during that single hour in 2009 and I'm glad to say that two of them were planted in our garden, a cherry and the focus of his post a rowan tree.
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| Me and our Rowan. |
Moving swiftly on to 2014 and the rowan has put on great growth and for the first year it had multiple flower heads, rather than the single one of last year.
We only had a single fruit on the tree last year - which isn't surprising for such a young tree. It was interesting to see the single berry that remained on the tree, which start as a yellow-green colour before turning red, lasted well into spring. However, the berry is more correctly termed a 'pome' which is the type of fruit, which include apples, made by this subtribe of the Rosaceae family.
The rowan or mountain ash is a member of the utterly massive Rosaceae family which consists of more than 2800 species across 95 genera. The buds are covered in a hairy felt that fades over time.
When the serrated-edged leaves appear they are arranged in pairs along a central vein, which ends with a terminal leaf.
The flowers are a beautiful yellowish-white colour and are arranged on a pannicle-like structure called a corymb. As you can see in the photo below there are many flowers within the inflorescence. There are 5 roundish petals and many stamens surround the carpels.
Next time I'll give an update on both of my trees and may try to find some larger specimens of the star magnolia and a rowan, so I can see what my trees may eventually look like!
Until then, have a look at some of the other trees being followed this year throughout the world - over on Loose and Leafy:
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| Tree-following is kindly hosted by Lucy Corrander of Loose and Leafy. |
I loved reading about your Rowan, particularly since we love seeing the rowan berries in Scotland when we are there. I shall be interested to see what birds come for the berries as the next few months go by ... my guess for no.1 place = blackbird!
ReplyDeleteThanks Caroline. Fingers crossed. We have few birds due to having roads along three sides of the house - however we did have a blackbird recently pulling out and chopping up and earthworm!
Deleteaha! Now I know what a "rowan" is -- "mountain ash" is quite familiar here in the USA.
ReplyDeleteThat's interesting to know. I find the spread of common names so interesting. There's a book on British plants called Flora Britannica that talks about the folklore and common names of plants. It's amazing that just travelling a few miles to a different county could mean a plant has a very different common name!
DeleteI love the single berry. Like a sort of experiment by the tree. Looking forward to hearing about your other trees.
ReplyDeleteThanks Helen. I really enjoy it when plants experiment, it gives me an opportunity to learn so much.
DeleteSeems the Rowan is not the only thing to have greened-up in your garden. The single-berry photo is fun. I'm familiar with the berries when red (though in larger numbers!) but don't think I've noticed the flowers before.
ReplyDeleteThanks. We planted a few shrubs last year to minimise the energy required to keep the garden looking like a garden rather than an unloved and unkempt jungle! lol yes, it was rather a lazy effort on behalf of Rowan to only make a single berry - but better than nothing :)
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