Service Tree Care

Sorbus domestica, with the common name service tree or sorb tree (because of its fruit), is a species of Sorbus native to western, central and southern Europe, northwest Africa (Atlas Mountains), and southwest Asia (east to the Caucasus). It may be called true service tree, to distinguish it from wild service tree Sorbus torminalis.

It is a deciduous tree growing to 15–20 m (rarely to 30 m) tall with a trunk up to 1 m diameter, though it can also be a shrub 2–3 m tall on exposed sites. The bark is brown, smooth on young trees, becoming fissured and flaky on old trees. The winter buds are green, with a sticky resinous coating. The leaves are 15–25 cm long, pinnate with 13-21 leaflets 3–6 cm long and 1 cm broad, with a bluntly acute apex, and a serrated margin on the outer half or two thirds of the leaflet. The flowers are 13–18 mm diameter, with five white petals and 20 creamy-white stamens; they are produced in corymbs 10–14 cm diameter in late spring, and are hermaphrodite and insect pollinated. The fruit is a pome 2–3 cm long, greenish-brown, often tinged red on the side exposed to sunlight; it can be either apple-shaped (f. pomifera (Hayne) Rehder) or pear-shaped (f. pyrifera (Hayne) Rehder).