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Harmless🍽️ Edible

🍁 Wild Service Tree

Sorbus torminalis · Rosaceae

🌳 Temperate Europe
🧠 To remember it"The service tree has the leaf of a maple, but it alternates" — alternate leaves = wild service tree, opposite leaves = maple, a single glance at the branch node is all you need.
Wild Service Tree — Sorbus torminalis

🔍 Identify it without mistakes

Unobtrusive forest tree, often mistaken for a maple because of its simple, lobed leaves — a unique trait among European sorbs, which almost all have pinnately compound leaves. Bark cracks into greyish-red scales as it ages. Small white flowers in corymbs in spring, reddish-brown fruits speckled with small pale dots (lenticels).

  1. SIMPLE leaves (not compound) with 3-5 pairs of pointed, toothed lobes, maple-like appearance
  2. underside of the leaf initially downy whitish, becoming hairless later
  3. bark cracking into greyish-red scales with age
  4. oval reddish-brown fruits, speckled with small light dots (lenticels), in small clusters
  5. white flowers in loose corymbs, May
Size15-25 m (tree)
FloweringMay
Habitatopen woodlands, forest edges, dry limestone soils, often associated with oak — scattered tree, rarely in pure stands

⚠️ Not to be confused with

Field Maple (similar leaf, different tree, no danger) (Acer campestre)none, neither is toxic

To tell them apart: maple has OPPOSITE leaves (two per node, facing each other) while wild service tree has ALTERNATE leaves (one per node, staggered) — the most reliable feature to tell them apart in the field

🍽️ Eating it

Partsfruits (chequers / service berries)
SeasonOctober-November, after bletting
Tastesweet-sour once bletted, with a hint of date

Preparation : fruit is acrid and astringent when picked, like medlars and rowan berries: leave it to blet after the first frosts, or cook into jam or brandy; was also traditionally consumed dried for the winter

🪓 Other bushcraft uses

  • very fine and hard wood, sought after in cabinetmaking and for making musical instruments and precision rulers, under the commercial name of "Swiss pearwood"
Sources (2)

No entry replaces a certain identification in the field, or medical advice. When in doubt: don't eat it. If ingestion is suspected: poison control or 112/911.