Dwarf whitebeam

Photo: peganum from Henfield, England — CC BY-SA 2.0 · source

Survives zone 4 through 7

Harvest calendar

Best planted in early spring after your last frost, or in fall before the ground freezes, depending on your climate.

One of the few genuinely shrubby species related to the whitebeams and rowans — most of its relatives are trees. A true high-alpine plant, native to 2,500 m in the Pyrenees, Alps, Carpathians and Balkans, and in cultivation in Britain since 1683. ⚠ Not just astringent: raw fruit in this group contains parasorbic acid, which causes vomiting, stomach cramps and diarrhoea if you eat any quantity of it. Cooking, freezing, drying or a hard frost converts it to harmless sorbic acid — which is exactly why every traditional recipe cooks it and why the fruit is picked after the first frosts.

Hardiness

Zone 4–7

Habit

Shrub

Edible part

Fruit

Ripens

Aug

Mature size

Slow-growing, dwarf and compact, typically 1.5–1.8 m (5–6 ft)

Light

Full sun

Soil pH

6.5–8.0 (neutral to alkaline) — a lime-loving mountain species

Environment

Alpine

Native range

Mountains of central and southern Europe — the Pyrenees east through the Alps to the Carpathians and the Balkans, to 2,500 m elevation.

Status

Both wild and cultivated

Years to fruit

4–6 yrs

Growth speed

Slow

Spacing

150 cm (59 in) apart — about 2.3 m² (24 sq ft) per plant

Leaf shape

Ovate to slightly obovate, finely toothed, smooth and hairless on both sides

Root system

Shallow, tough and wide-spreading through stony alpine ground, anchoring the low shrub against snow creep. A lime-tolerant root that does poorly on acid peat.

Fruit description

Oval, scarlet-red pome, 10–13 mm

Propagation

Seed after a long cold stratification, often needing two winters to move; layering also works. Cuttings root badly. Slow by any route.

Pollination

Insect-pollinated, and odd about it: the pink petals stay erect and the flower never opens flat, so a visiting bee has to push into it. That closed-flower character is what separates the genus from Sorbus proper.

The edible parts listed above are a starting point, not a field guide. Identify a plant with certainty — ideally against a local authority — before eating any part of it, and read the full disclaimer. Spotted something wrong? Report it.