Sorbus caloneura (Stapf) Rehd.

A slender tree to about 35 ft in the wild, with glabrous young shoots and large, ovoid, glabrous winter-buds 1⁄4 in. long and slightly more wide. Leaves elliptic to oblong, narrowed at both ends, 2 to 31⁄2 in. long, half as wide, irregularly double-toothed, clothed when very young with a loose floss which soon falls away, leaving them glabrous above but with a few hairs beneath on the veins and in the vein-axils; lateral veins in nine to sixteen pairs, impressed above and prominent beneath; petiole 3⁄8 to 1⁄2 in. long, at first hairy. Flowers white, about 1⁄2 in. wide, produced in rounded, dense corymbs 2 to 3 in. across; flower-stalks and receptacle downy. Anthers pink. Styles five, sometimes three. Fruits somewhat pear-shaped, 3⁄8 in. long, brown, lenticellate; the calyx falls away from the apex completely, leaving a small pit there. Bot. Mag., t. 8335.

A native of western, central and southern China, extending into the former Indochina and Malaysia; discovered by Augustine Henry; introduced by Wilson in 1904 for Messrs Veitch, in whose Coombe Wood nursery it flowered and fruited only five years later. It is a member of the section Micromeles, less common in cultivation than the closely allied S. meliosmifolia.