American Mountain Ash Trees are now bursting with their outrageously orange berries. These trees (Sorbus aucuparia) are the subjects of considerable mystery and misconception.
For one thing, Mountain Ash Trees aren’t especially fond of mountains and they’re not ash trees; they’re members of the rose family. (Their name reportedly derives from the Old English word “aesc,” meaning “spear,” because the wood of their English cousins was used for spear and arrow shafts.)
Speaking of English cousins, the American trees also are called Rowan Trees because our settlers from the British Isles mistakenly thought that they were the same as the similar European Rowan Trees.
Nonetheless, Canada gets the prize for the most interesting alternative name for their American Mountain Ashes: “Dogberry Trees.” (The reported Old English etymology here dates to the 1550s, when the bitter Rowan Tree fruit reportedly was considered inferior – “only fit for a dog.”)
The Celts (and some of America’s colonists) thought Rowan trees warded off witches and had other magical properties. But, it’s a traditional Ojibwa Tribe legend about the trees that gives us pause, as we look at our multitudes of orange orbs. The legend is that, if there are many Mountain Ash berries in late summer and fall, the winter is sure to be very, very harsh.
It doesn’t help much to know that the ancient Ojibwa couldn’t conceive of people who were so selfish as to create global warming that makes winter predictions impossible. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on September 19, 2023.) See also the image in the first Comment space.