Sorbus foliolosa - Small Leaf Rowan

Small Leaf Rowan is a shrub or small tree, 1-4 m tall. Branchlets are brownish to grayish brown, round, densely rusty velvet-hairy when young, becoming hairless, with oblong lenticels; buds ovoid, 4-6 mm, tip blunt. Leaves are imparipinnate, together with axis 7-12 cm; leaf-stalk 1.5-2 cm. Leaflet blades are 6-9 pairs, somewhat leathery, at intervals of 0.8-1.2 cm, dark green above, oblong-elliptic or oblong, 2-3.5 x 0.8-1.4 cm, below slightly velvet-hairy, rusty finely velvet-hairy or nearly hairless along midvein, hairless, rarely velvet-hairy, base obliquely rounded, margin sharply few toothed towards the tip. Flowers are borne in compound corymbs 4.5-10 cm in diameter, many flowered; axis and flower-stalks with rusty hairs and oblong lenticels. Flower-stalk are 1-2 mm or indistinct. Flowers are 6-9 mm in diameter. Sepal cup is bell-shaped or obconic, sepals triangular, hairless, tip blunt or pointed. Petals are white, ovate to broadly obovate, 2-3 mm, base shortly clawed. Stamens are 20, shorter than petals. Fruit is red, spherical or ovoid, 4-6 mm in diameter, with sparse small lenticels; sepals persistent; seeds brownish, 1-2 mm. Small Leaf Rowan is found in mixed forests, stream sides at altitudes of 2500-4200 m, in the Himalayas to China South-Central. Flowering: April-June.