The Right Service Tree.

Botanical name: 

Sorbus legitima.

A tree wild in some parts of this kingdom, but not known in others, nor even in many of our gardens. It grows twenty feet high or more, and the branches stand very irregularly. The leaves are each composed of several pairs of smaller, set on a common rib, with an odd one at the end these are long, narrow, and serrated, so that they have some resemblance of the ash tree. The flowers are not large; they are white, and stand in clusters. Each is succeeded by a fruit of the shape of a pear, and of the bigness of some pears of the smaller kind; these are green, except where they have been exposed to the sun, where they art sometimes reddish; the taste is very pleasant when they are ripe.

The unripe fruit is used; they press the juice, and give it against purgings, but is little known.


The Family Herbal, 1812, was written by John Hill.