Characteristics

• The Wild Service Tree grows up to 25–30 m tall.
• It has a round, dense crown and a straight trunk with a diameter at breast height of 50–70 cm (sometimes up to 100 cm).
• Bark is gray, shiny, and smooth when young with large lenticels; later dark gray, coarsely cracked, and partially peeling.
• Root system initially has a taproot, later heart-shaped.
• Shoots are greenish-brown to reddish-brown, shiny, covered with small whitish lenticels.
• Buds are spirally arranged, ovate or globular, blunt, covered with light green to reddish, shiny, bare scales.
• The terminal bud is larger than lateral buds.
• Leaves are simple, pinnately lobed, up to 18 cm long and 10 cm wide, with 3–5 lobes on each side.
• Lobes are pointed; the lowest pair is the largest and almost perpendicular to the midrib. Lobes become smaller toward the tip, ending in a short point. Margin is singly or doubly serrated. Upper leaf surface is dark green, shiny, and glabrous; lower surface lighter, initially hairy, later mostly glabrous or hairy along veins only.
• Petiole is 2–5 cm long.
• Leaves turn yellow-orange to reddish in autumn.
• Flowers are 10–15 mm wide, bisexual, insect-pollinated, grouped in 30–50 in terminal upright corymbs of 10–12 cm.
• Each flower has 5 sepals and petals, 20 stamens, 2 styles, and an underdeveloped ovary. Petals are ovate, white. Flower stalks are hairy.
• Flowering occurs in May and June.
• Fruiting starts between 20 and 30 years of age.