Here you see the outrageously orange berries of the American mountain ash tree:
These berries have been appearing here for at least a week now, but there seems to be fewer of them than last year. And some seem to be turning black sooner:
That may be good if the Ojibwa tribe’s legend is correct in proclaiming that the more of the robust berries that appear, the harsher the winter. However, there’s a lot of misconception about these trees (Sorbus aucuparia).
For one thing, mountain ash trees aren’t especially fond of mountains and they’re not really ash trees; they’re members of the rose family. (Their name reportedly derives from the Old English word “aesc,” meaning “spear”; the wood of the similar rowan trees in England was used for spear and arrow shafts.)
Speaking of those English trees, the American trees also still are sometimes called rowan trees because our settlers from the British Isles did so under the mistaken impression that they were the same as their European cousins. The Celts (and some of America’s colonists) thought rowan trees warded off witches and had other magical properties. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen any witches near our trees.
Canada gets the prize for the most interesting alternative name for their mountain ashes, which are the same as ours. They’re called “dogberry trees” by our northern neighbors. (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” to eat off the tree.) But they do make good jellies and jams, I hear.
(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on September 6, 2024.)