A round-headed, generally multi-trunked, slender, deciduous tree to about 10 m tall. Bark smooth. Branches ascending. Young growth and terminal buds downy but not sticky. Leaves compound, alternate, 15-20 cm long. Leaflets 9-15, opposite, oblong-lanceolate, 3-6 cm long, sharply toothed, mostly downy beneath, sessile; autumn colour orange to scarlet. Flowers less than 1 cm wide in more or less flat or domed clusters 10-15 cm wide, rather unpleasant-smelling, stalks hairy. Styles 3-4, shorter than stamens. Fruit bright red, globular, about 1 cm wide.
Eurasia.
NSW: Orange (Cook Park).
Source: (2002). Rosaceae. In: . Horticultural Flora of South-eastern Australia. Volume 3. Flowering plants. Dicotyledons. Part 2. The identification of garden and cultivated plants. University of New South Wales Press.
, Golden Fern-leaf Rowan. Leaves with a reddish axis. Leaflets yellowish and deeply cut; yellow in autumn. Fruits large. Found by Ordnung growing naturally on the border of Germany and Czechoslovakia and described in 1899. Specimens vic: Dandenongs ('Pirianda').
Sorbus aucuparia 'Xanthocarpa'
Fruits orange-yellow. Origin unknown but in horticulture pre-1893.