The fruits (a pome) of this tree were once used to make or flavour beers, and it is sometimes called the Chequers Tree, hence 'Chequers' as a pub name in parts of England. Wild Service-tree is a good indicator of ancient woodland, but has also been widely planted for its autumn colour.

Native to much of north-western Europe, including southern England at its northern latitudinal limit, and south through Spain and Italy and east through the Balkans and Caucasus. It is considered a neophyte in Ireland, and is generally uncommon in Britain and Ireland, even in cultivation.

Monoecious, with partially self-incompatible hermaphrodite flowers. A sexually reproducing diploid that sets seed but also suckers. Insect-pollinated, with seed dispersed by birds and mammals. It is a parent of several British endemic hybrid whitebeams (see Karpatiosorbus) and of Swedish Whitebeam.

Medium (25m), usually single-stemmed and fast-growing. Bark ash-grey, becoming scaly and peeling. Twigs brown, soon glabrous and shiny; buds bright green, rounded. Notable for large, shiny, sharply cut leaves with spectacular yellow-crimson autumn colour. Leaves 6-12cm, almost as wide as long, ovate, glabrous, with 3-5 sharp lobe-pairs (the basal pair divergent), veins branching along the midrib, double-toothed. Flowers white (2cm) in a loose woolly-stalked corymb (June). Fruit a small russet pome (15mm).

Wild Service-tree thrives on heavy clay soils. Though it can be grown as a specimen, it is naturally a forest tree, best managed as a sub-canopy species; unusually, it prefers some competition and light shade, neither becoming overbearing. Foresters are encouraged to include a few in mixed broadleaved stands, protecting stems from deer and removing lower branches in stages for timber quality.

Flowers and fruits sustain a wide range of insects, mammals and birds, but only after the first autumn frosts, which blet (soften) the hard pomes.

Generally healthy. Typically heavily targeted by browsing deer. Under a warming climate it is likely to find new territory further north, while in southern and eastern areas its tolerance to drought may be advantageous.

It produces the most valuable timber of any tree species grown in Europe, and is especially highly prized for veneers, which attract twice the value of the best veneers from Common Walnut (p. xxx) and Wild Cherry (p. xxx).