Aria chamaemespilus

Aria chamaemespilus is a species of flowering plant in the family Rosaceae, commonly known as false medlar or dwarf whitebeam. It is native to the mountains of central and southern Europe, from the Pyrenees east through the Alps to the Carpathians and the Balkans, growing at altitudes of up to 2500 m.

Description

Aria chamaemespilus is a deciduous shrub growing to 2–3 metres tall. The leaves are spirally arranged, oval-elliptic, 3–7 cm long, with an acute apex and a serrated margin; they are green on both sides, without the white felting found on most whitebeams. The flowers are pink, with five forward-pointing petals 5–7 mm long; they are produced in corymbs 3–4 cm diameter. The fruit is an oval red pome 10–13 mm diameter.

Taxonomy

The species was first described as Mespilus chamaemespilus by Linnaeus in 1753. It was soon transferred to the genus Sorbus, as Sorbus chamaemespilus, by Crantz in 1763; it remained almost universally known by this name until nearly the end of the 20th century or even later, often placed in its own subgenus Sorbus subgenus Chamaemespilus, distinguished from other subgenera of Sorbus by the pink (not white) flowers with forward-pointing petals (not opening flat). With the start of genetic analysis, Sorbus was however found to be polyphyletic in 1991 and split into several genera; Sorbus chamaemespilus was then placed in the monotypic genus Chamaemespilus as Chamaemespilus alpina (since the combination "Chamaemespilus chamaemespilus", being a tautonym, is not admissible in botany). More recently, it has become clear that the simple-leafed species traditionally included in Sorbus form a monophyletic group, and this species could thus be included in an expanded genus Aria.