Trees and shrubs of the genus Sorbus are found across temperate the regions of Europe, Asia, and North America, where they are variously known as Rowans, Whitebeams, Service Trees or Mountain Ashes. They are members of the Rose Family, Rosaceae, and produce brightly coloured berries, which are consumed by Birds, helping to spread their seeds.
In a paper published in the Nordic Journal of Botany on 25 January 2017, Zhijian Yin, Mingxu Zhao, Fanglin Tang, and HongYan Sun of the China Forest Exploration and Design Institute and the Southwest Monitoring Center of Natural Reserve and Wildlife of the State Forestry Administration of the Peoples Republic of China, and Hua Peng of the Kunming Institute of Botany of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, describe a new species of Sorbus from the Cibagou National Nature Reserve in Zayü County in southeast Tibet.
The new species is named Sorbus cibagouensis, meaning 'from Cibagou'. It is a small tree, reaching about 6 m in height, with dark grey to black bark, leaves reaching 19 cm in length, but split into distinct leaflets, and produce white blossom. The species was found growing in a mixed conifer and broadleaved forest at an altitude of between 2600 and 2950 m above sealevel, though its distribution is not really known.
Sorbus cibagouensis, wild plant. Zhao Mingxu in Yin et al. (2017).
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