Allotments 4 All

Produce => Edible Plants => Topic started by: Deb P on September 21, 2010, 11:24:31

Title: Mystery ? fruit tree......id please?
Post by: Deb P on September 21, 2010, 11:24:31
A friend at work bought me this sample of a mature tree growing in her garden, it is about 30' high and is surrounded by other fruit trees. My first thought was some sort of crab apple?  ???

The fruits are all 1cm size, and look as though they are changing colour to ripen now, but are rock hard and more haw shaped. The leaves are oval, slightly serrated with a whitish back, the stems are very smooth and slightly shiny, and fruits hang in clusters. Cut in half, the fruits have two pips like small apple pips with a very hard white flesh. Ideas anyone?

(http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l47/dlp133/Misc/id.jpg)
Title: Re: Mystery ? fruit tree......id please?
Post by: star on September 21, 2010, 11:45:10
Hi Deb, it looks like Whitebeam to me. But Im not great at ID's.

Someone else may know better.
Title: Re: Mystery ? fruit tree......id please?
Post by: Unwashed on September 21, 2010, 12:21:44
Whitebeam, good call.
Title: Re: Mystery ? fruit tree......id please?
Post by: Deb P on September 22, 2010, 21:38:27
Many thanks! ;D
Title: Re: Mystery ? fruit tree......id please?
Post by: chriscross1966 on September 22, 2010, 23:58:07
I was going to say Service Tree and get excited and ask for a cutting but the leaf shape isn't right. Whitebeam is a very good call or a Whitebeam-Service hybrid (there's tons of them out there, in places locally endemic).... That said if anyone has a Service Tree I'd like a cutting please.....
Title: Re: Mystery ? fruit tree......id please?
Post by: Robert_Brenchley on September 23, 2010, 17:16:49
You can get them from Buckingham Nurseries.
Title: Re: Mystery ? fruit tree......id please?
Post by: chriscross1966 on September 23, 2010, 17:36:55
Quote from: Robert_Brenchley on September 23, 2010, 17:16:49
You can get them from Buckingham Nurseries.

..which costs real money and I'm mean :D......
Title: Re: Mystery ? fruit tree......id please?
Post by: Unwashed on September 23, 2010, 18:57:24
If I recall rightly there are true service trees (Sorbus domestica) at Westonbirt arbouretum.

I've planted a whitebeam, a wild service tree, and rowan in my allotment hedge - sorbus all.  The rowan and wild service tree were just wips and only a couple of quid and they established easily.  The whitebeam I bought as a bare-rooted specimen for the garden - about 6' tall.  It struggled for a couple of years and never really got away so I moved it over the allotment and after about 10 years it's finally looking happy.