Rowan trees

When I was climbing Mt. Kurodake, I often saw rowan trees with a lot of red berries. Some of them had a frozen water drop which reflected the sunlight. It was really beautiful. I found in my dictionary that rowan trees are also called mountain ash in American English. We Japanese call it Nanakamado which means seven cooking stoves. It is said that the name comes from the fact that the tree is so hard to burn that it has to be burned seven times in a stove. It's interesting that both American and Japanese have the same word origin; ash is one the most fireproof substances in the world as you know. Ancient people must have known the physical characteristic of this tree both in America and Japan and they might have made good use of them in their life. Unfortunately the berries are inedible at least for human and I don't know how to utilize them, but it might be enough because they are beautiful.

Comments

[Rowan (yes, really.)]

I don't know about the Japanese Rowan, but you can find Rowan berry jam/jelly in Britain. It's usually eaten with meat. It's also used in some other things.

http://www.answers.com/topic/rowan