Mountain Ash

Sorbus aucuparia

Mountain Ash Quickbeam Rowan Tree Parts used Uses Habitat and cultivation Constituents

Mountain ash - a small deciduous tree occasionally reaching 60 feet tall. The leaves are alternate and pinnately divided, consisting of 11-17 oblong toothed leaflets, which are softly hairy below. Creamy white flowers (May) grow in large dense clusters, followed by bunches of round red berries.

Although it is popular as an ornamental tree today, mountain ash was once in ill repute. Perhaps because the Celtic Druids had venerated the tree, it came to be associated with witchcraft in 15th- and 16th-century England, earning itself a reputation as a symbol of paganism and involvement with the supernatural. Herbalists refused even to comment on the tree. But birds always found its fruits irresistible, and hunters used to bait their traps with the fruits- hence the species name aucuparia, from the Latin "to go fowling."

Colonists imported mountain ash to the New World for its berries, which are similar in taste to cranberries. They not only supplied many delectable items-pies, jellies and jams, and a bittersweet wine- but had medicinal value too, primarily as an astringent. Herbalists to this day prescribe a fruit tea for diarrhea and hemorrhoids. Because of their vitamin C content, the berries were specified explicitly for scurvy, a vitamin C deficiency disease.

PARTS USED

Fruit.

USES

The astringent berries are taken as a jam or an infusion to treat diarrhea and hemorrhoids. Infusions may also be used as a gargle for sore throats and as a wash for hemorrhoids and excessive vaginal discharge.

HABITAT AND CULTIVATION

Native to Europe, mountain ash is naturalized in North America from Newfoundland to southwestern Alaska and British Columbia, and south to the northern United States.

CONSTITUENTS

The fruit contains tannins, sorbitol, malic and sorbic acids, sugars, and vitamin C. The seeds contain cyanogenic glycosides, which, in a reaction upon contact with water, produce the extremely poisonous prussic acid.