Sorbus sitchensis

Sitka Mountain-ash
Sorbus sitchensis flower cymes
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
(unranked):	Angiosperms
(unranked):	Eudicots
(unranked):	Rosids
Order:	Rosales
Family:	Rosaceae
Genus:	Sorbus
Subgenus:	Sorbus
Section:	Tianshanicae
Species:	S. sitchensis
Binomial name
Sorbus sitchensis M.Roem.

Sorbus sitchensis, also known as Sitka Mountain-ash, is a small shrub of northwestern North America.

Description

A multistemmed shrub, it is endemic to northwestern North America, from the Pacific coast of Alaska, to the mountains of Washington, Oregon and northern California and eastward to parts of Idaho and western Alberta and Montana. It is widespread in British Columbia.

Sorbus sitchensis fall foliage and fruit

The otherwise similar Sorbus scopulina has yellow-green sharp-pointed leaflets that are sharply serrated over most of their length.

• Winter buds: Not sticky with rusty hairs.
• Leaves: Alternate, compound, six to ten inches long, Leaflets seven to ten, blue-green, lanceolate or long oval, with rounded tip, toothed usually from the middle to the end. In autumn they turn yellow, orange and red. Stipules leaf-like, caducous.
• Flowers: After the leaves are fully grown. White, small, 80 or fewer, borne in flat compound cymes three or four inches across.
• Fruit: Berry-like pome, globular, one-quarter of an inch across, bright pinkish red, borne in cymous clusters.

Natural range