This tree is probably the rarest on the British List. For many years the only known example was a single tree in the Forest of Wyre in Worcestershire. That tree was destroyed by a fire in 1862 but cuttings had been taken from it and one survives as a majestic tree, illustrated here, in the Museum Gardens, York.

Recently the position of the True Service Tree as a British native tree has been supported by small isolated populations of the species discovered on cliffs in South Wales, on the slopes of the Avon Gorge near Shirehampton, Bristol, and in the upper reaches of the River Camel in Cornwall.