Rowan is among the low-value fruit trees due to the characteristic bitter taste of its berries. However, being very common, it is widely used as an ornamental plant. Durable and resilient wood is also often used in carpentry.
Botanical description
Under the name "rowan", the species and varieties of which you will find in the article, in modern botany it is customary to understand a whole genus of woody low plants from the large Pink family. The number of species exceeds a hundred, and about a third of them grow freely in Russia. Rowan is widely distributed in North America, Asia and throughout Europe. This deciduous plant in the form of a shrub or tree is especially spectacular in the autumn period, when the leaves are painted in crimson tones, and the branches are decorated with huge bright clusters.
Use and properties of mountain ash
Wood rowan is characterized by elasticity and high density, which allows it to be used for the manufacture of joinery. A flowering tree or shrub is an excellent honey plant.
Berriesmountain ash is eaten, especially this was facilitated by the breeding of new varieties, the fruits of which have lost their bitter taste. You can eat them fresh, canned (compotes, jams, preserves), make marmalade or marshmallow, dry, marinate or soak. Some properties of mountain ash, or rather its berries, are used in folk medicine. Among the useful qualities are the following: diuretic and choleretic, laxative, hemostatic, diaphoretic, antiscorbutic. The first frosts help to get rid of bitterness in berries. They lead to the destruction of a specific glycoside.
Common rowan: varieties and species
The most famous and widespread species is the mountain ash. Its Latin name comes from the phrase "attracting birds". This is due, perhaps, to the fact that bright red berries remain on the bush not only in autumn, but almost all winter, serving as food for birds. The species is distributed throughout the world in the temperate zone. Most often it is a tree, less often - a shrub with a rounded crown and a height of up to 12 m, but, as a rule, only within 5-10 m.
Specialists in the field of breeding divide the bred rowan varieties into two varieties: Nevezhinskaya and Moravian. The first includes hybrids of Eastern European origin, and the second - Central European. Differences are not only rowan berries (in taste, color, shape), but also the plants themselves - the shape of the crown, leaves, bark, etc.
Moravian Rowan
Sweet rowan, or Moravian, is a variety of ordinary. For the first time herdiscovered in the 19th century in Moravia in the Sudetenland region. Introduced into the culture thanks to the beautiful and tasty fruits. A tree 10-12 m high at a young age has a narrow pyramidal crown, large leaves up to 25 cm long, fruits up to 1 cm in diameter. The varieties of the Central European group presented below are of the greatest interest.
Edulis
Not a very tall tree (10-15 m) is distinguished not only by sweet fruits, but also by its decorative appearance. The crown is narrow-pyramidal, the leaves are large, not leathery, odd-pinnate, from the side they look like openwork, they turn into rich red and yellow shades in autumn. Flowering begins at the end of May, the inflorescence is corymbose, dense. The fruits are round-oval, large with juicy sweet-sour pulp, scarlet-red. Edulis mountain ash has a high winter hardiness, light-requiring, but can withstand light shading, prefers fertile and well-drained soils. It does not tolerate swampiness and excess moisture, it reacts poorly to gas contamination and smoke in the air. It is used as a fruit crop, as well as in group alley plantings.
Bissnery
Hybrid with a narrow compact crown shape grows up to 11 m high. Decorative throughout the year due to large beautiful feathery leaves, small size and bright berries. There is no bitter taste in fruits. Like many other varieties of decorative mountain ash, Bissneri is not afraid of frost, but is sensitive to polluted city air, swampy and heavy soils. Prefers sunny, goodilluminated areas, tolerates a slight shadow.
Concentra
Another Western European variety with a pyramidal crown shape. The leaves are large, whitish on the underside with serrated edges. The fruits are oval-round, wide-ribbed, bright orange in color, collected in a dense shield of 70-100 pieces, have a good taste without excessive astringency and bitterness with juicy orange pulp. The variety is highly resistant to frost and diseases. Prefers loose fertile soil without stagnant moisture, good lighting.
Nevezhinskaya mountain ash
Nevezhinskaya mountain ash is also a variety of ordinary, and only a specialist can distinguish them by external signs. As mentioned above, rowan berries have a characteristic bitter taste and become edible only after the first frost. However, the Nevezhinsky variety has a distinctive feature. Its berries are devoid of bitterness even when unripe, and in terms of vitamin saturation, it is comparable to lemon and blackcurrant. The tree was not obtained by selection, but is a natural species. The history of its discovery is very interesting. The tree was found by the peasant Shchelkunov in the Andreevsky forest, which was located near the village of Nevezhino. Having planted it in his garden, he had no idea that the frost-resistant and unpretentious tree would spread throughout the country. Fellow villagers bred rowan seedlings and sold them to neighboring regions. At the moment, a large number of varieties have been bred, we draw your attention to the most famous and proven ones.
Eastern European varieties
- Kubovaya is a medium-sized tree with a paniculate crown shape, large thin leaves and elongated bright orange fruits. It is characterized by very high frost resistance, photophilous, undemanding to the soil, but prefers medium or light loams. The mountain ash of the Kubovaya variety does not have a bitter taste, moderately tart, the flesh is bright yellow, juicy. Fruits weighing 0.5 g.
- Sugar Petrova is a low tree (up to 5 m) with decorative large leaves. The variety is valued for the high content of sugars in the fruits in the absence of astringency and bitterness. Frost-resistant, unpretentious.
- Spark - an early variety of universal purpose. The plant is medium tall with straight ascending branches arranged compactly. The fruits are large, weighing 1.5-1.7 g with yellow flesh, red-orange when ripe.
Michurin varieties
Varieties bred by the famous domestic breeder I. V. Michurin are extremely rare to find in modern gardens. At present, some of them are lost, others are simply mixed up with each other and hardly distinguishable. But there is also a preserved hybrid Michurin mountain ash. Variety Titan (photo above), in particular, to this day is sold and bought by gardeners. It is bred by pollinating rowan flowers with pear and red-leaved apple pollen. The plant is a low tree (up to 3.5 m) with a rounded crown. Large berries are collected in powerful clusters, have a characteristic taste without bitterness and a rich dark red hue. The tree is differenthigh resistance even to the most severe climatic conditions. Hybrids Liqueurnaya, Pomegranate, Burka are close to the Titan variety in all characteristics.
Do not forget that ordinary and chokeberry, the varieties of which are also very numerous, are far from the same thing. Even if you compare the appearance of plants, you can notice significant differences. Chokeberry, or Michurin's chokeberry, belongs to a completely different genus - Aronia, but to the same Pink family. The species was bred in the 19th century in the Michurin nursery. This is a low shrub (up to 3 m) with large dark green leaves and spherical black (sometimes with a purple tint) fruits with seeds. Popular as a honey, medicinal and fruit crop.
Features of growing mountain ash
- Rowan is a very large tree, so it makes sense to plant seedlings around the perimeter of the site. The plant prefers well-lit places, tolerates light shading, develops poorly in the shade, bears fruit poorly.
- Almost all varieties of mountain ash are unpretentious and undemanding to the soil, but still develop better in a light substrate, on loam. Dislikes excessive moisture and waterlogging.
- All mountain ash (varieties do not matter) prefer autumn planting or early spring planting (before growth begins). For a bountiful harvest, it is recommended to plant several different hybrids.
- Basic tree care is the timely removal of root shoots and shoots,which develop below the grafting site, watering (if necessary), loosening the soil and processing against pests and diseases.
- Rowan starts to grow quite early, in this regard, it is advisable to prune and top dress in a short and early time.
- From the third year after planting, it is recommended to feed trees with complex mineral fertilizers in three stages: before flowering in spring, in summer during fruit formation and in autumn after harvest.
