The Wild Service Tree of Moesgård

Denmark's largest wild service tree grows in a museum park, and it is a species most Danes could not name. The national tree register holds it twice. A 2010 report called it presumably the largest wild service tree in Denmark and possibly in Europe. A second surveyor came back in 2022, measured it properly and recorded it as simply alive: 17.5 metres tall, 1.38 metres through the trunk, and 4.33 metres around when the tape is dropped to knee height, because the stem splits into two and then several more about a metre up. Both entries carry the same coordinates, so this is one tree filed twice rather than a pair. Sorbus torminalis is scarce this far north and rarely gets near this size. Its Danish name, tarmvridrøn, and its Latin one both point at the same old use of the fruit, a remedy for gripes and colic. The berries are hard and brown and only edible once frost has softened them, and in October the whole crown turns deep crimson, which is the other reason people hunt the species out. Danish Wikipedia's article on the species names this park as the home of the country's largest specimen, which supports the register, though the claim may trace back to the same original observation rather than a second measurement. The register rates it nationally noteworthy, its top tier, and put a maximum age of about 145 years on it in 2010.