Shrub or tree to 10 m tall Leaves: alternate, pinnately compound, stalked, with eleven to seventeen leaflets. Flowers: borne on a rather loose, flat-topped inflorescence reaching 6 - 15 cm wide, white, with triangular sepals and five petals 4 - 5 mm long. Fruit: berry-like (pome), orangish red, 7 - 10 mm across, with flattened seeds. Buds: with sticky outer scales and brown hairs along margins of inner scales. Leaflets: dark green above, paler beneath, 3.5 - 8 cm long, elliptic to oblong with a pointed to nearly blunt tip, sharply toothed, sometimes slightly hairy along veins beneath.
Similar species: Sorbus aucuparia differs by having buds that are hairy but not sticky, as well as young twigs, lower leaflet surfaces and inflorescence stalks that are hairy.
Flowering: May to July
Habitat and ecology: Very rare in the Chicago Region, cool woods.
Occurence in the Chicago region: native
Etymology: Sorbus is the classical name for a plant in the genus. Decora means decorative.
Shrub or tree to 10 m; winter-buds glutinous, the principal scales glutinous on the back, the inner usually conspicuously brown-ciliate; lfls oblong or oblong-elliptic, abruptly short-acuminate or merely acute, 3.5-8 cm, (2-)2.5-3(3.5) times as long as wide, sharply serrate, paler and glabrous or sparsely pilose beneath; infl 6-15 cm wide; hypanthium glabrous or very sparsely pilose; pet orbicular, 4-5 mm, about equaling the stamens; fr 7-10 mm thick; 2n=68. Moist or dry, often rocky soil; Lab. to Minn., s. to Conn., N.Y., n. O., n. Ind., and ne. Io. May, June. (Pyrus d.; Sorbus subvestita)
Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.