General Plant Information (Edit)
Plant Habit: Tree
Sun Requirements: Full Sun
Water Preferences: Wet
Wet Mesic
Mesic
Soil pH Preferences: Strongly acid (5.1 – 5.5)
Moderately acid (5.6 – 6.0)
Slightly acid (6.1 – 6.5)
Neutral (6.6 – 7.3)
Minimum cold hardiness: Zone 2 -45.6 °C (-50 °F) to -42.8 °C (-45°F)
Maximum recommended zone: Zone 6b
Plant Height: 15 to 30 feet, to 60 feet
Plant Spread: 15 to 25 feet
Leaves: Good fall color
Deciduous
Broadleaf
Fruit: Showy
Edible to birds
Fruiting Time: Late summer or early fall
Fall
Late fall or early winter
Flowers: Showy
Blooms on old wood
Flower Color: White
Flower Time: Late spring or early summer
Suitable Locations: Patio/Ornamental/Small Tree
Uses: Flowering Tree
Will Naturalize
Edible Parts: Fruit
Eating Methods: Cooked
Wildlife Attractant: Bees
Birds
Butterflies
Resistances: Flood Resistant
Toxicity: Leaves are poisonous
Propagation: Seeds: Stratify seeds: about 38 degrees for 60 to 120 days in cool, moist
Pollinators: Various insects
Miscellaneous: Tolerates poor soil
Monoecious
Conservation status: Least Concern (LC)

Conservation status:
Conservation status: Least Concern
Image
Common names
  • American Mountain Ash
  • American mountain-ash
  • Dogberry

Photo Gallery
Location: northeast Pennsylvania
Date: 2017-05-25
young tree in bloom
Location: Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, Pennsylvania
Date: 2015-08-27
fruit cluster
Location: Eagle Bay, New York
Date: 2023-06-17
American Mountain Ash (Sorbus americana), budding and beginning t
Location: Twisp
Date: October
Location: Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, Pennsylvania
Date: 2015-08-27
wild trees on mountain outlook
Location: Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, Pennsylvania
Date: 2015-08-27
bark

Date: 2015-08-07
Location: Twisp
Date: October
Location: Twisp
Location: Hawk Mountain, Pennsylvania
Date: 2019-10-24
fruit clusters
Location: Morton Arboretum
Date: July
credit: Bruce Marlin

Date: 2015-08-07

Date: 2015-08-07

Date: 2015-08-07
Location: My Garden
Date: 2013-08-22
Location: My Garden
Date: 2013-01-26
Location: Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, Pennsylvania
Date: 2017-09-05
fruit and foliage
Location: Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, Pennsylvania
Date: 2015-08-27
multi-trunks of a tree
Location: Morton Arboretum in Lisle, Illinois
Date: 2017-09-05
specimen in Appalachian Collection
Location: Morton Arboretum in Lisle, Illinois
Date: 2017-09-05
trunk of specimen in Appalachian Collection

Date: 2015-08-07
Location: In my garden
Date: 10/03/2011
Location: Hawk Mountain, Pennsylvania
Date: 2019-10-24
fruit clusters but trees without foliage
Location: Hawk Mountain, Pennsylvania
Date: 2019-10-24
fruit clusters and without foliage
Location: Hawk Mountain, Pennsylvania
Date: 2019-10-24
the only leaves left and just a small shoot
Location: My Garden
Date: 2013-06-12
Location: Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, Pennsylvania
Date: 2015-08-27
fruit and foliage
Location: Botanical Garden of the University of Vienna
credit: Anna reg
Location: In my garden 
Date: 10/03/2011
Location: Long Island, NY 
Date: 2013-09-05
Location: Long Island, NY 
Date: 2013-09-05
Location: Long Island, NY 
Date: 2013-05-17
Location: Long Island, NY 
Date: 2013-05-17
Location: Long Island, NY 
Date: 2013-05-17
Location: My Garden
Date: 2013-06-12
The holes in the bark are from sapsucker woodpeckers' , Eventuall

Date: 2011-11-02
This plant is tagged in:
Image Image

Comments:
  • Posted by 4susiesjoy (Leonard, Minnesota - Zone 3b) on Jan 26, 2013 12:58 PM concerning plant:
    This tree is especially vulnerable to sap sucker woodpeckers.
  • Posted by Newyorkrita (North Shore, Long Island, NY ) on Oct 3, 2011 7:33 PM concerning plant:
    American Mountain Ash is a lovely small tree with lacy looking small compound leaves that is loaded with showy orange fruit clusters in the fall that hang on the tree over the winter. Those berries are eaten by many of the backyard songbirds. I have always liked the looks of these trees and planted mine to provide winter fruit for the birds.

    .
  • Posted by ILPARW (southeast Pennsylvania - Zone 6b) on Feb 12, 2019 1:46 PM concerning plant:
    This is a northern tree species native to most of Manitoba, along southern Hudson Bay through Newfoundland down through New England and down the Appalachians to northern Georgia, and around much of the Great Lakes, except the south end, in bogs & swamps and up on mountain cliffs and tops. Its compound pinnate leaves are 6 to 12 inches long with 11 to 17 leaflets that are 1.5 to 4 inches long by 1/2 to 3/4 inch wide. It gets a good fall color from bright yellow to orange to red to red-purple. There are some larger, diverse conventional nurseries in the North and some native plant nurseries that sell it around its native range. Redbud Native Plant Nursery is selling some in Media in southeast Pennsylvania. Like other Mountain-ashes or Rowan tree, it likes cool or just warm summers and not hot ones. In nature it lives about 50 years, but if planted farther south in regular landscapes of Zones 5 & 6, (unless in bogs or on mountain cliffs), it will live about 20 years after planting before the borers attack and kill it due to heat stress. It dislikes drought, like birches, and it should be irrigated during drought. Like its close relatives of crabapples, cherries, and such, it grows about 1.5 feet/year and is easily transplanted with a fibrous root system. The very tart berries are edible to humans, but better for jellies than raw. I noticed a number of nearby Pin Cherry trees on the cliffs of the Hawk Mountain Sanctuary northwest of Reading, Pennsylvania that liked the same cooler, upland habitat as the Mountain-ash.
Plant Events from our members
chelle On November 4, 2014 Transplanted
Garage and shed wall bed, center.

Tag reads Sorbus Americana 'Boundary County'. Unsure if that's a new cultivar name, or if it just denotes where it came from.
tinytreez From January 12, 2020 to June 1, 2020 Obtained plant
Seeds obtained from Mount Royal Seeds.

Seeds soaked in lukewarm water for 24 hours.

Seeds placed in moist paper towel and stored in plastic sandwich bag and placed inside refrigerator to stratify for ~150 days.

Stratification end date: May - June 2020
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