They are shrubs or small trees that have a hybrid origin involving crosses between Aria and Sorbus sensu stricto.

They are white- or greenish-grey-tomentose (covered with dense, matted, woolly hairs) beneath, with 7–15 pairs of lateral veins, with small to prominent, long, sub-acute to obtuse lobes with a variable number of teeth.

The fruit is medium-sized, orange-red to crimson in colour, with few to sparse small lenticels (porous tissue consisting of cells).

[3] In Rosaceae subtribe Malinae, many taxa in nature and in horticulture are the result of hybridisation between two (or more) genera.

(Rock Whitebeam); in the system of Sennikov & Kurtto (2017),[2] this was treated as Hedlundia arranensis (Hedl.)

Sennikov & Kurtto, is in turn the result of back-crossing of Hedlundia arranensis onto Sorbus aucuparia (Robertson et al., 2004).

[10] This shake up of the taxonomy has changed the names of the three microspecies that are unique to the island of Arran on the west coast of Scotland.

[7] While including this species in Hedlundia reflected the broad contributions of the parental genomes, extending the splitting approach to its logical conclusion, the Arran service tree could be treated in another nothogenus with a name like ×Sorbohedlundia.

[12] The genus name of Hedlundia was chosen by botanists Alexander Nikolaevitsch Sennikov and Arto Kurtto in 2017,[2][7] "The new genus is dedicated to Johan Teodor Hedlund (1861 - 1953), the renowned Swedish expert in Sorbus, who contributed very much to the early understanding of the Sorbus hybrida aggr.

[17] The term Hedlundia is not accepted by all botanists, who still refer to the species as Sorbus such as Sorbus austriaca,[18] and GRIN (United States Department of Agriculture and the Agricultural Research Service) only accepts 3 crosses (as of October 2023);×Hedlundia armeniaca (Hedl.)

[20] According to Kew and Plants of the World Online:[1] They are native to most parts of Europe (within Albania, Austria, Baltic States, Bulgaria, Crimea, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Finland,[17] France, Germany,[21] Great Britain, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Yugoslavia).

[26] Hedlundia persica is used as a source of firewood in Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

[28] Hedlundia pseudofennica, which is endemic to the Isle of Arran in Scotland, is threatened by habitat loss.

Sorbus cuneifolia, Llangollen Whitebeam,[29]) in Wales, UK has been assessed on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species as 'Endangered'.