Pyrus Americana, DC.
Sorbus Americana, Marsh.
Mountain Ash.
Habitat and Range.—River banks, cool woods, swamps, and mountains.
Newfoundland to Manitoba.
Maine,—common; New Hampshire,—common along the watersheds of the Connecticut and Merrimac rivers and on the slopes of the White mountains; Vermont,—abundant far up the slopes of the Green mountains; Massachusetts,—Graylock, Wachusett, Watatic, and other mountainous regions; rare eastward; Rhode Island and Connecticut,—occasional in the northern sections.
South, in cold swamps and along the mountains to North Carolina; west to Michigan and Minnesota.
Habit.—A small tree, 15-20 feet high, often attaining in the woods of northern Maine and on the slopes of the White mountains a height of 25-30 feet, with a trunk diameter of 12-15 inches; reduced at its extreme altitudes to a low shrub; head, in open ground, pyramidal or roundish; branches spreading and slender.
Bark.—Closely resembling bark of P. sambucifolia.
Winter Buds and Leaves.,—Buds more or less scythe-shaped, acute, smooth, glutinous. Leaves pinnately compound, alternate; stem grooved, enlarged at base, reddish-brown above; stipules deciduous; leaflets 11-19, 2-4 inches long, bright green above, paler beneath, smooth, narrow-oblong or lanceolate, the terminal often elliptical, finely and sharply serrate above the base; apex acuminate; base roundish to acute and unequally sided; sessile or nearly so, except in the odd leaflet.