Aunt Kitty's Garden of wonders

If you have a rowan tree growing near your house, consider yourself lucky to have such a ready source of high-energy botanical material. If a rowan tree popped up by itself near your house, consider yourself blessed! Birds that eat the fruit will distribute the seeds (with a dose of fertilizer!), but not all fall in ideal spots for growing.

Rowan is strongly associated with traditionally masculine-associated qualities of strength, protection, and power, It is also associated with psychic energies and divination. Rowan wood is useful for making staffs, walking sticks, and wands, or carved into amulets. The berries can be carried when an extra dose of luck is needed for a situation that you are walking into, such as a job interview. The tree itself confers protection to a home that it grows next to.

While the berries are extremely bitter and astringent when fresh, they were used in recipes Scandinavian countries where the bitterness, tamed a bit by cooking, was appreciated. Consult recipes from experts before trying this, because the berries must be prepared properly and used in modest proportions to produce anything edible.

Here is an infographic about rowan for sharing: