Sorbus or uncertain parentage, have gained the Royal Horticultural Society’s Award of Garden Merit: Sorbus Sorbus is a genus of about 100–200 species of trees and shrubs in the rose family, Rosaceae. Species of "Sorbus" ("s.l.") are commonly known as whitebeam, rowan, service tree, and mountain-ash. The exact number of species is disputed depending on the circumscription of the genus, and also due to the number of apomictic microspecies, which some treat as distinct species, but others group in a smaller number of variable species. Recent treatments treat "Sorbus" in a narrower sense to include only the pinnate leaved species of
Sorbus aucuparia birds and are thus propagated by being passed intact in their droppings. The fruit are eaten by about 60 bird species and several mammals. They are liked particularly by thrushes and other songbirds, and are also eaten by cloven-hoofed game, red fox, European badger, dormouse, and squirrel. Fruit of "S. aucuparia" are used as a food source by migratory birds in winter, including Bohemian waxwing, spotted nutcracker, and redwing. Cloven-hoofed game also excessively browse foliage and bark. The plant roots can be found in symbiosis with arbuscular mycorrhizal and less commonly with ectomycorrhizal fungi. It is usually later superseded by