The Service Tree of Chambésy

Sorbus domestica is rare enough in Switzerland that a healthy one beside a road counts as a find. The service tree is the overlooked member of a familiar family, a relative of the rowan that grows into a proper timber tree and carries small brown fruit shaped like miniature apples or pears. Those fruits are why anybody ever planted it. Hard and sour straight off the branch, they were left to go soft and brown before eating, and went into cider and perry across southern Europe to sharpen them. This one went into the ground in April 1966 on the Route de Pregny, which makes it about sixty years old, young for a tree on this list. The date is worth trusting for an unglamorous reason: the register records a real month for it, where its uncertain entries all default to the first of January. It measures 247 centimetres round and is in good health, and it is here for what it is rather than for how big it is. The register is also the only source that mentions it, which is thin for a species this easy to mistake for a rowan or a wild service tree. If you know this tree, or know who put it there, tell us. It is a five-minute walk from the tulip tree in Parc de l'Impératrice, which makes the two of them one stop rather than two.