Wyevale Nurseries has gifted Eastnor Castle at the foot of the Malvern Hills, a rare native tree.

Sorbus domestica, often known as the Whitty Pear or Sorb Tree, is sometimes referred to as the True Service Tree.

Wyevale Nurseries director Stephen Ashworth said the donation was suggested by Hereford Botanical Society’s chairman, Jean Wynne-Jones. “We were very happy to offer as Eastnor Castle’s arboretum has one of the county’s outstanding tree collections,” he added.

The tree is typically a native of southern Europe but in 1983 was discovered to be native to Britain too. A remnant population of dwarfed, wizened trees hugs the steepest, remotest, cliffs at rare intervals along the coast of South Wales and the rocky crags of the Wye and Severn estuaries.

The donated tree was vegetatively propagated from a population at Porthkerry, near Cardiff. Raised and grown on at Wyevale Nurseries, the tree is likely to grow in cultivation like a rowan, which it resembles. It has large crab apple-like fruits that are occasionally pear-shaped. “Surely this is the rarest British native tree and has laid low and unnoticed for so long,” Ashworth said.

At the planting ceremony, Eastnor Castle owner James Hervey-Bathurst used a freshly restored spade last used by Queen Mary to plant an English Oak in the grounds in 1937. The tree still prospers there.

James Hervey-Bathurst said the sorbus would be “quite at home at Eastnor, even amongst the cedars and Wellingtonias. It is a privilege to be playing a part in preserving this indigenous tree and good to use the historic spade to complete the planting.”