Strange stunted shrub on mountaintop

Alun

Was out hillwalking in Wicklow at the weekend and on the top of Tonduff I came across this small stunted shrub on the ground amongst some equally stunted heather and fraughan. The photo isn't great, sorry, it was raining and blowing a gale at the time (!), but the leaves almost look like mountain ash to me. Would a mountain ash grow stunted like that rather than growing into a tree if it found itself in an exposed windswept location like that? Or is it something totally different?

lucalux

Alun wrote: »

Was out hillwalking in Wicklow at the weekend and on the top of Tonduff I came across this small stunted shrub on the ground amongst some equally stunted heather and fraughan. The photo isn't great, sorry, it was raining and blowing a gale at the time (!), but the leaves almost look like mountain ash to me. Would a mountain ash grow stunted like that rather than growing into a tree if it found itself in an exposed windswept location like that? Or is it something totally different?

Looks like rowan/mountain ash to me alright, as far as I know they're kind of slow-growing so being on an exposed site like that would affect how straight it's going to grow

Alun

Yes, it's an odd one, it wasn't more than a few inches "tall", more of a shrub than a tree. You sometimes see equally stunted conifers in extremely open, windswept locations like that that are never going to grow more than a few inches however hard they try.