Рябина: ботаническое описание и история названий.

Common name of a subgenus of flowering plants in the family Rosaceae

The rowans ('/r//aʊ//ə//n//z/ ROWənz or '/r//oʊ//ə//n//z/ ROHənz) or mountain ashes are shrubs or trees in the genus Sorbus of the rose family, Rosaceae. They are native throughout the cool temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere, with the highest species diversity in the Himalaya, southern Tibet and parts of western China, where numerous apomictic microspecies occur. The name rowan was originally applied to the species Sorbus aucuparia and is also used for other species in the genus Sorbus. Natural hybrids, often including S. aucuparia and the whitebeam, Aria edulis (syn. Sorbus aria), give rise to many endemic variants in the UK.

The Latin name sorbus was borrowed into Old English as syrfe. The Latin name sorbus is from a root for "red, reddish brown" (PIE *sor /*ser ); English sorb is attested from the 1520s in the sense "fruit of the service tree", adopted via French sorbe from Latin sorbum "service berry". Sorbus domestica is also known as "whitty pear", the adjective whitty meaning "pinnate". The name "mountain ash" for Sorbus domestica is due to a superficial similarity of the rowan leaves to those of the ash, not to be confused with Fraxinus ornus, a true ash that is also known as "mountain ash". Sorbus torminalis is also known as "chequer tree"; its fruits, formerly used to flavour beer, are called "chequers", perhaps from the spotted pattern of the fruit. The traditional name rowan was applied to the species Sorbus aucuparia. The name "rowan" is recorded from 1804, detached from an earlier rowan tree, rountree, attested from the 1540s in northern dialects of English and Scots. It is often thought to be from a North Germanic source, perhaps related to Old Norse reynir (c. f. Norwegian rogn, Danish røn, Swedish rönn), ultimately from the Germanic verb *raud inan "to redden", in reference to the berries (as is the Latin name sorbus). Various dialectal variants of rowan are found in English, including ran, roan, rodan, royan, royne, round, and rune. The Old English name of the rowan is cwic beám, which survives in the name quickbeam (also quicken, quicken tree, and variants). This name by the 19th century was reinterpreted as connected to the word witch, from a dialectal variant wick for quick and names such as wicken tree, wich tree, wicky, and wiggan tree, giving rise to names such as witch hazel and witch tree. The tree has two names in Welsh, cerdinen and criafol. Criafol may be translated as "The Lamenting Fruit", likely derived from the Welsh tradition that the Cross of Christ was carved from the wood of this tree, and the subsequent association of the Rowan's red fruit with the blood of Christ. The Old Irish name is cairtheand, reflected in Modern Irish caorthann. The "arboreal" Bríatharogam in the Book of Ballymote associates the rowan with the letter luis, with the gloss "delightful to the eye (li sula) is luis, i. e. rowan (caertheand), owing to the beauty of its berries". Due to this, "delight of the eye" (vel sim.) has been reported as a "name of the rowan" by some commentators. The most common Scots Gaelic name is caorann , which appears in numerous Highland place names such as Beinn a' Chaorainn and Loch a’ Chaorainn. Rowan was also the clan badge of the Malcolms and McLachlans. There were strong taboos in the Highlands against the use of any parts of the tree save the berries, except for ritual purposes. For example, a Gaelic threshing tool made of rowan and called a buaitean was used on grain meant for rituals and celebrations. In the Canadian provinces of Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia, this species is commonly referred to as a "dogberry" tree. In German, Sorbus aucuparia is known as the Vogelbeerbaum ("bird berry tree") or as Eberesche. The latter is a compound of the name of the ash tree (Esche) with what is contemporarily the name of the boar (Eber), but in fact the continuation of a Gaulish name, eburo (also the name for a dark reddish brown colour, cognate with Greek orphnos, Old Norse iarpr "brown"); like sorbus, eburo seems to have referred to the colour of the berries; it is also recorded as a Gaulish name for the yew (which also has red berries), see also Eburodunum (disambiguation).

Rowans are mostly small deciduous trees 10–20 m tall, though a few are shrubs. Rowans are unrelated to the true ash trees of the genus Fraxinus, family Oleaceae. Though their leaves are superficially similar, those of Sorbus are alternate, while those of Fraxinus are opposite. Rowan leaves are arranged alternately, and are pinnate, with (7–)11–35 leaflets. A terminal leaflet is always present. The flowers are borne in dense corymbs; each flower is creamy white, and 5–10 mm across with five petals. The fruit is a small pome 4–8 mm diameter, bright orange or red in most species, but pink, yellow or white in some Asian species. The fruit are soft and juicy, which makes them a very good food for birds, particularly waxwings and thrushes, which then distribute the rowan seeds in their droppings. Rowan fruit are a traditional source of tannins for mordanting vegetable dyes. In Finland, it has been a traditional wood of choice for horse sled shafts and rake spikes. The fruit of European rowan (Sorbus aucuparia) can be made into a slightly bitter jelly which in Britain is traditionally eaten as an accompaniment to game, and into jams and other preserves either on their own or with other fruit. The fruit can also be a substitute for coffee beans, and has many uses in alcoholic beverages: to flavour liqueurs and cordials, to produce country wine, and to flavour ale. In Austria a clear rowan schnapps is distilled which is called by its German name Vogelbeerschnaps, Czechs also make a rowan liquor called jeřabinka, the Polish Jarzębiak is rowan flavoured vodka, and the Welsh used to make a rowan wine called diodgriafel. Rowan cultivars with superior fruit for human food use are available but not common; mostly the fruits are gathered from wild trees growing on public lands. Rowan fruit contains sorbic acid, and when raw also contains parasorbic acid (about 0.4% 0.7% in the European rowan), which causes indigestion and can lead to kidney damage, but heat treatment (cooking, heat drying etc.) and, to a lesser extent, freezing, renders it nontoxic by changing it to the benign sorbic acid. They are also usually too astringent to be palatable when raw. Collecting them after first frost (or putting in the freezer) cuts down on the bitter taste as well.

In Sami mythology, the goddess Ravdna is the consort of the thunder god Horagalles. Red berries of rowan were holy to Ravdna, and the name Ravdna resembles North Germanic words for the tree (for example, Old Norse reynir). In Norse mythology, the goddess Sif is the wife of the thunder god Thor, who has been linked with Ravdna. According to Skáldskaparmál the rowan is called "the salvation of Thor" because Thor once saved himself by clinging to it. It has been hypothesized that Sif was once conceived in the form of a rowan to which Thor clung. In the Fianna Cycle of Irish mythology, The Pursuit of Diarmuid and Grainne sees the couple eloping, trying to escape the vengeance of the legendary leader Fionn Mac Cumhaill, whom Grainne had spurned. The pair came to a forest guarded by the giant Searbhán. Searbhán allowed the pair to rest and hunt in his forest, as long as they did not eat the berries of his magical rowan tree. The pregnant Grainne desired the berries, and Diarmuid was compelled to kill Searbhán to obtain them. His mortal weapons being powerless against Searbhán, he used the giant's own iron club to kill him. The pair climbed high into the rowan tree to eat the sweetest berries, then rested in the tree afterwards. This was in violation of the advice of Aengus, the god of love, who had warned the couple that they should "not sleep in a cave with one opening, or a house with one door, or a tree with one branch, and that they would never be able to eat where they cooked, or sleep where they ate." Fionn Mac Cuimhaill tracked the couple to the rowan tree and tricked Diarmuid into revealing himself through a game of chess. Aengus spirited Grainne away and Diarmuid leapt to safety, and the pursuit continued.

The European rowan (Sorbus aucuparia) has a long tradition in European mythology and folklore. It was thought to be a magical tree and give protection against malevolent beings. The tree was also called "wayfarer's tree" or "traveller's tree" because it supposedly prevents those on a journey from getting lost. It was said in England that this was the tree on which the Devil hanged his mother. British folklorists of the Victorian era reported the folk belief in apotropaic powers of the rowan tree, in particular in the warding off of witches. Such a report is given by Edwin Lees (1856) for the Wyre Forest in the English West Midlands. Sir James Frazer (1890) reported such a tradition in Scotland, where the tree was often planted near a gate or front door. According to Frazer, birds' droppings often contain rowan seeds, and if such droppings land in a fork or hole where old leaves have accumulated on a larger tree, such as an oak or a maple, they may result in a rowan growing as an epiphyte on the larger tree. Such a rowan is called a "flying rowan" and was thought of as especially potent against witches and black magic, and as a counter charm against sorcery. Rowan also serves as protection against fairies. For example, according to Thomas Keightley mortals could safely witness fairy rades (mounted processions held by the fairies each year at the onset of summer) by placing a rowan branch over their doors.

In Neo Druidism, the rowan is known as the "portal tree". It is considered the threshold, between this world and otherworld, or between here and wherever you may be going, for example, it was placed at the gate to a property, signifying the crossing of the threshold between the path or street and the property of someone. According to Elen Sentier, "Threshold is a place of both ingress (the way in) and egress (the way out). Rowan is a portal, threshold tree offering you the chance of 'going somewhere and leaving somewhere."

In Newfoundland, popular folklore maintains that a heavy crop of fruit means a hard or difficult winter. Similarly, in Finland and Sweden, the number of fruit on the trees was used as a predictor of the snow cover during winter, but here the belief was that the rowan "will not bear a heavy load of fruit and a heavy load of snow in the same year", that is, a heavy fruit crop predicted a winter with little snow. However, as fruit production for a given summer is related to weather conditions the previous summer, with warm, dry summers increasing the amount of stored sugars available for subsequent flower and fruit production, it has no predictive relationship to the weather of the next winter. In Malax, Finland the reverse was thought. If the rowan flowers were plentiful then the rye harvest would also be plentiful. Similarly, if the rowan flowered twice in a year there would be many potatoes and many weddings that autumn. And in Sipoo people are noted as having said that winter had begun when the waxwings (Bombycilla garrulus) had eaten the last of the rowan fruit. In Sweden, it was also thought that if the rowan trees grew pale and lost colour, the autumn and winter would bring much illness.