A Questionable Home-Made Liqueur
THERE are two types of sorbs. One is the delightful Slavonic people who live in Germany’s beautiful Spreewald and press the seeds of common blue flax to make a salad dressing. And the other is a species of rowan known as the service tree—or Sorbus domestica by botanists.
It turns up very occasionally in the woodlands of southern England and Wales where tremendous efforts are made to conserve the few remaining specimens, which is rather unnecessary since the trees are not native to the British Isles but probably just escapees from medieval monastery gardens.
A service tree in full autumn beauty is a staggering sight. The fruits hang down in clusters, rather like its cousin, the common mountain ash or rowan, but the individual fruits are much bigger—the size of a large cherry—and they usually ripen to red on their sunny side. The species is native to Mediterranean hills, especially Italy and Greece, but you also see it inland throughout the Balkans and much of south-west France. The leaves look like any other rowan—long and pinnate—and produce a bit of autumn colour, but not much. Anyway, it’s the fruits for which people grow it.
Denne historien er fra October 04,2017-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra October 04,2017-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Happiness in small things
Putting life into perspective and forces of nature in farming
Colour vision
In an eye-baffling arrangement of geometric shapes, a sinister-looking clown and a little girl, Test Card F is one of television’s most enduring images, says Rob Crossan
'Without fever there is no creation'
Three of the top 10 operas performed worldwide are by the emotionally volatile Italian composer Giacomo Puccini, who died a century ago. Henrietta Bredin explains how his colourful life influenced his melodramatic plot lines
The colour revolution
Toxic, dull or fast-fading pigments had long made it tricky for artists to paint verdant scenes, but the 19th century ushered in a viridescent explosion of waterlili
Bullace for you
The distinction between plums, damsons and bullaces is sweetly subtle, boiling down to flavour and aesthetics, but don’t eat the stones, warns John Wright
Lights, camera, action!
Three remarkable country houses, two of which have links to the film industry, the other the setting for a top-class croquet tournament, are anything but ordinary
I was on fire for you, where did you go?
In Iceland, a land with no monks or monkeys, our correspondent attempts to master the art of fishing light’ for Salmo salar, by stroking the creases and dimples of the Midfjardara river like the features of a loved one
Bravery bevond belief
A teenager on his gap year who saved a boy and his father from being savaged by a crocodile is one of a host of heroic acts celebrated in a book to mark the 250th anniversary of the Royal Humane Society, says its author Rupert Uloth
Let's get to the bottom of this
Discovering a well on your property can be viewed as a blessing or a curse, but all's well that ends well, says Deborah Nicholls-Lee, as she examines the benefits of a personal water supply
Sing on, sweet bird
An essential component of our emotional relationship with the landscape, the mellifluous song of a thrush shapes the very foundation of human happiness, notes Mark Cocker, as he takes a closer look at this diverse family of birds
