Sorbus esserteauana Sorbus esserteauana Sorbus esserteauana, commonly known as Esserteau's rowan, is a species of rowan. It is a small tree, typically tall growing in mountain thickets and cliffs. It is an endemic species to China, being only found in western Sichuan. It has small white flowers and small red berries that are actually a pome fruit. Unlike all other species of "Sorbus", the fruit are hard and inedible to humans, but they are eaten by birds that scatter the seeds. It is cultivated as an ornamental plant in gardens and parks for its decorative fruit and because it attracts birds. When
Sorbus mougeotii which differs only in slightly broader leaves. It is also closely related to "Sorbus intermedia" (Swedish whitebeam), which differs in having the leaves grey-white below and more deeply lobed, with the lobes spreading rather than forward-pointing, the fruit oval and less bright red, and in forming a stouter tree with a single trunk and more horizontal branching. All are tetraploid apomictic species which breed true without pollination, and ultimately of hybrid origin between "Sorbus aria" and "Sorbus aucuparia". It is widely grown as an ornamental tree in northern Europe, though usually unrecognised, misidentified as "Sorbus intermedia". Although described in 1858,