Rowan berries

I've long wanted to try and photograph all the various colours of berries on the rowan (mountain ash) trees. While I was taking my birdwatching group round Edinburgh's Botanic Gardens on Monday, I realised that my best option for getting as many colours as possible was to visit the Botanics with a camera. So today Crafty Green Boyfriend and I did just that and here are the rowans:

On the way to the Botanics we noticed this tree outside St Mary's Episcopal Cathedral (above and below) - probably a Vilmoran's rowan (Sorbus vilmorinii), a relatively unusual ornamental rowan, notable for its beautiful pink berries.

Many of the rowans inside the Botanics are labelled with their species which makes identification so much easier. Here are:

Sorbus pseudovilmorini (above and below)

Sorbus macrantha

 Sorbus apiculata 

Sorbus eburnea

Sorbus discolor

Sorbus himalaica

Sorbus monbeigii

this orange berried rowan is in a private garden beside the Botanics and so isn't labelled. 

this lovely yellow berries rowan may or may not be the same species as the one overhanging the wall of the Botanics, but it looks particularly beautiful against the wonderful blue sky of a few days ago. 

This white berried rowan is a fairly common ornamental species in Edinburgh.

 and here's two photos (above and below) of our native rowan (Sorbus aucuparia)

Rowan berries shouldn't be eaten raw as they can cause indigestion and lead to kidney damage but they can be cooked and made into jelly or used as a coffee substitute.

Birds love rowan berries. I've already heard reports of the first waxwings being seen in Scotland this year, and I'm hoping that in the next month or so these rowan trees will all be covered in waxwings.....

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