Cormus domestica, commonly known as service tree or sorb tree, is a species of tree native to western, central and southern Europe, northwest Africa (Atlas Mountains), and southwest Asia (east to the Caucasus). It may be called true service tree,
It is a long-lived tree, with ages of 300–400 years estimated for some in Britain.
Cultivation and uses
thumb|Some mature fruits thumb|Fruits
The fruit is a component of a cider-like drink which is still made in parts of Europe. Picked straight off the tree, it is highly astringent and gritty; however, when left to blet (overripen) it sweetens and becomes pleasant to eat. In the Moravian Slovakia region of the Czech Republic, there is a community-run museum with an educational trail and a festival for this tree, with products like jam, juice and brandy made from its fruit.
The sorb tree is cited in the Babylonian Talmud in Ketubot 79a. The example refers in Jewish Babylonian Aramaic to a "thicket of zardəṯā" ().
In ancient Greece, the fruit was cut in half and pickled, which in Plato's Symposium (190d7-8) has Aristophanes use as a metaphor for the cutting in half of the original spherical humans by Zeus.
Service tree wood was often used for manufacturing wooden planes of all types used for working wood, because servicetree wood is fairly dense and holds a profile well.
Etymology and other names
The English name comes from Middle English serves, plural of serve, from Old English syrfe, borrowed from the Latin name sorbus; it is unrelated to the verb serve. Other English names include sorb, sorb tree, and whitty pear—"whitty" because the leaves are similar to rowan (i.e. pinnate), and "pear" due to the shape of the fruit. The name sorb, likewise, is from the Latin sorbus; because of its fruit and has nothing to do with the Slavic ethnic groups known as the Sorbs and Serbs.