Feedback request: Sorbus domestica (18935)

[David Price]

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Specimen #336665

Taxon:	Rosaceae: Sorbus domestica L. ("Service-tree")
Filed in taxon folder:	Rosaceae: Sorbus domestica L. ("Service-tree")
Collection date:	9/1909
Locality:	Great Britain, VC37 Worcestershire, Worcester, SO85, Ivy House, in the [Cathedral?] precincts; in the North border of the Garden, about halfway between the house and the towpath
Institution:	South London Botanical Institute (SLBI)
Image:
notes:	[no specimen; copy of notice requiring protection of the tree] the tree is now 14 feet high, and 13 inches in girth; it is about 20 years old, and has not yet borne any fruit. [history given of origin in Wyre Forest; implies this is a seedling from Arley Castle]
Filing note:	(although not backed with a specimen, I think this is a stand-alone record)

Inferred details are marked.

Documented by oldnick on 16^th May 2012.

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User comments about this sheet

wonastow wrote

Over the years the tree has been propagated from seed
(with difficulty) or cuttings or by using suckers. The fruit
produces seed erratically, apparently dependent on
temperature. It is a tree of warmer climates. Various
Whitty Pear Trees have been planted in the county and
elsewhere in England and Wales over a long period
of time. Trees grown at Arley Castle may have been
given to owners of big houses and gardens. We know
of some and I expect there are others. Some are known
to be progeny of the original tree; others may have
been imported from Europe. One was
planted at Worcester Cathedral in the early 1900s by
Minor Canon Woodward, a relative of the Arley Castle
Woodwards, and this one is mentioned several times
in the Transactions of the Worcestershire Naturalists’
Club as a flourishing tree. Apparently a cricket-loving
canon later found that the tree obscured his view of
the Worcester County Cricket ground across the River
Severn and it was felled. Fortunately two others had
been planted in the cathedral grounds. see http://www.wyreforest.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/The-Old-Sorb-Tree.pdf