The September blog will be all about Sorbus fruits – these have been showy now for a few weeks and will continue to be garden highlights for several weeks (maybe months) more. Sorbus have been featured before in this forum. Here is a thread from 2012 that has lots of photos: Perfect time to see Sorbus fruits . I will start with whitebeams. Here is Sorbus hemsleyi, showing some russetting on the pomes. What looks like two trees in the background is the same tree. And Sorbus karchungii. It's the very skinny (sorry, "exceptionally narrow") tree in the foreground. It is supposed to have pleated leaves - I'm not sure if that means along the veins or at the leaf edges. I'll post some rowans when I have the blog link.
Douglas Justice’s September in the Garden blog is up now at September 2018 in the Garden | UBC Botanical Garden. Sorbus commixta definitely mixed me up. Even though Douglas does into detail about how varied these can be (hence the name), he didn’t go on long enough to really get through to me. Look at these fruits from two different S. commixta trees. I guess when the green pomes turn orange they will be a little more convincing. Here is the S. commixta opposite the glacial erratic in the Meyer Glade. Here is the S. commixta at the end of the parking lot. There appear to be at least two species here. The S. commixta is the prominent one in the centre with the upright branches. There is also supposed to be a Sorbus randaiensis in this area, so presumably it is this one to the left of the S. commixta, snuggled into a magnolia.
Sorbus vilmorinii fruits have a nice colour now, are supposed to lighten up in the next month. This is growing out of a stump, and is notable for its "fine-textured foliage" (does that mean small leaves?). I like the pink pomes. Another tree growing out of a stump is Sorbus sargentiana, one I call the Christmas tree, because the fruit clusters look like the Christmas lights that have been gathered into balls and hung on trees at the VanDusen Christmas Lights display. I was so taken with the fruits that I hadn’t realized what large leaves this tree has – one of the largest leaved rowans around here, with leaflets the size of whitebeam leaves. I only paid attention to the leaves on the S. sargentiana after noticing the leaves on Sorbus harrowiana, which have leaflets around 10cm, not nearly as long as the S. sargentiana, but they seemed huge when I first noticed them.
The last to cover from the blog is Sorbus reducta, unusual in that it is a low creeping shrub. I am eager to see the "crimson-green" pomes, which Douglas explained means that the exposed parts of the pomes are eventually burnished crimson over a deep green ground colour. Well, that hasn't happened yet, though the pomes do have some mottled colouring. I was going to try not to post Sorbus yuana, which I must post every year, but really, it's hard not to get excited about it. It has pride of place in the garden, with a beautiful shape and so laden with pinky-mauve pomes, not quite ripe. I took the first photo after hours on Daniel's walk. Last week I posted S. vilmorinii. Here is one of my favourites, Sorbus pseudovilmorinii. I probably post this every year too. The pomes are quite small and delicate looking, with nice colour variation among them.
For extra credit, here are two from the North Garden. Sorbus x hybrida 'Gibbsii', very showy trees at the north end of the North Garden, across the meadow from the Carolinian Garden. It is a hybrid between S. aucuparia (European rowan) and S. intermedia (Swedish whitebeam), and has many leaves that have a bit of both shapes - one or two pair of leaflets like a rowan nearest the petiole and the rest of the leaf lobed like a whitebeam. Nestled in next to the tree in the back in the last photo is a Sorbus 'Joseph Rock', like the one on the entrance plaza, but bigger, or at least it seems that way.
I thought I was being so observant in noticing the two different Sorbus trees, but it was pretty obvious today, October 24. Here are the Sorbus randaiensis on the left and the S. commixta on the right. The S. randaiensis leaves have not turned colour at all.
