Sorbus vilmorinii (mountain slopes, roadsides, mixed forests along river banks, grasslands, bamboo thickets). "Sorbus vilmorinii" was described based on a specimen in cultivation that was an apomictic microspecies. However, almost indistinguishable specimens are diploid and frequent in the wild. Also hybrids are common in the wild. In cultivation, this plant provides a long season of interest as an elegant, compact tree which can be grown in smaller gardens. It has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit. Like all rowans the fruit can be cooked and used to make bitter jellies or marmalades. Sorbus vilmorinii Sorbus vilmorinii, the Vilmorin's rowan
Fraxinus excelsior narrow crown. The bark is smooth and pale grey on young trees, becoming thick and vertically fissured on old trees. The shoots are stout, greenish-grey, with jet black buds (which distinguish it from most other ash species, which have grey or brown buds). The leaves are opposite, long, pinnately compound, with 7–13 leaflets with coarsely serrated margins, elliptic to narrowly elliptic, long and broad and sessile on the leaf rachis. There are no stipules. These features distinguish ash from mountain ash ("Sorbus aucuparia") in which the leaves are alternate with paired stipules. The leaves are often among the last to