strictly for the nerds...

Strictly for the Nerds: our wild service tree which the council planted just over a year ago as a Sorbus torminalis, had already been removed from the genus Sorbus (rowan, whitebeam) and placed in its own genus Torminalis where it now glories in its new name of T. glaberrima (glaber meaning smooth, hairless).

​Such has been the tree’s fascination to botanists and taxonomists that according to Wikipedia, at various times it's also been a hawthorn, a pear, an apple and a medlar. It is a native species and quite rare (ours is looking a bit as if it spent too long wrapped in a net waiting to be bought).