76 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN, 
Crataegus nitens, n. sp. 
Leaves broadly ovate, acute or acuminate, cuneate or rounded at 
the wide entire base, and coarsely serrate, with straight or incurved 
glandular teeth; nearly fully grown when the flowers open about the 
middle of May and then yellow-green and glabrous with the exception 
of a few pale hairs on the upper side of the midribs and in the axils 
of the veins below, and at maturity thin, glabrous, yellow-green and - 
very lustrous on the upper surface, paler and dull on the lower sur- 
face, 3-4 em. long and 2-2.5 cm. wide, with slender midribs, and usually 
four pairs of thin primary veins; petioles slender, wing-margined 
sometimes nearly to the middle, covered on the upper side with long 
white hairs, becoming glabrous, more or less tinged with red in the 
autumn, 1-1.5 cm. in length; leaves on vigorous shoots ovate, acumi- 
nate, rounded or abruptly cuneate at the broad base, more coarsely 
serrate, slightly lobed, 4-5 cm. long and 3.5-4 em. wide. Flowers 
1.2 cm. in diameter, on slender glabrous pedicels, in 10-14-flowered 
corymbs, the lower peduncles from the axils of upper leaves; calyx- 
tube narrowly obconic, the lobes gradually narrowed from wide bases, 
short, entire, glabrous, reflexed after anthesis; stamens 20; anthers 
cream color; styles3-5. Fruit ripening in October, on slender spread- 
ing pedicels, subglobose, orange red, lustrous, 6-8 mm. in diameter; 
calyx prominent, with a short tube, a wide shallow cavity, and spread- 
ing appressed lobes; flesh thin, dry and mealy; nutlets 3-5, usually 8, 
rounded at the ends, rounded on the back, 5 mm. long and about 
2.5 mm. wide. 
A tree often 7-8 m. high, with a trunk sometimes 3 dm. 
in diameter, covered with smooth gray bark, and wide- 
spreading branches forming a symmetrical round-topped 
head, and slender nearly straight branchlets light orange- 
green and glabrous when they first appear, becoming bright 
chestnut brown and lustrous in their first season and dull 
gray-brown the following year, and armed with occasional 
slender straight spines 1.5-2 em. in length. 
In rich soil on rolling rocky hills above the bluffs of the 
Mississippi River, near Hannibal, Marion County (J. Davis, 
61, type, May 14, 1909, October 6, 1911). 
From Crataegus viridis Linnaeus, which grows on the bot- 
tom-lands of the Mississippi River in Illinois, Crataegus 
nitens differs in the shape of the short broadly ovate short- 
pointed thicker and lustrous leaves, and in the darker color 
of the branches. It differs, too, in growing on high hills 
and not on bottom-lands. 
