ROSACEiE 393 



27. Crataegus fastosa, Sarg. 



Leaves broadly oval to ovate, rounded or acute at the apex, concave-cuneate or 

 rounded at the entire base, coarsely doubly serrate above, with straight glandular 

 teeth, and rarely on vigorous shoots slightly lobed, with broad acute lobes, when they 

 unfold covered above with long pale hairs and provided below with large tufts of 

 snow-white toraentum in the axils of the primary veins, when the flowers open from 

 the 20th to the 2oth of April dark yellow-green and nearly glabrous on the upper 

 surface and still tomentose in the axils of the veins below, and at maturity subcori- 

 aceous, glabrous, yellow-green and lustrous above, pale yellow-green below, l|'-2' 

 long, l'-2' wide, with prominent light yellow midribs deeply impressed on the upper 

 side, and usually 3-5 pairs of primary veins; their petioles slender, slightly wing- 

 margined toward the apex, at first densely villose, becoming puberulous, ^'-f' long. , 

 Flowers about |' in diameter, on slender pedicels, in compact many-flowered 

 glabrous corymbs, with large conspicuous oblong-obovate and acute to lanceolate 



r'^.(3?2 



coarsely glandular-serrate bracts and bractlets usually persistent until after the 

 petals fall; calyx broadly obconic, the lobes abruptly narrowed at the base, slender, 

 acuminate, coarsely glandular-serrate, glabrous on the outer, villose on the inner 

 surface; stamens 20; anthers pale yellow; styles 5, surrounded at the base by a 

 broad ring of pale tomentum. Fruit ripening from the middle to the end of Octo- 

 ber, on thin reddish pedicels, in few-fruited drooping clusters, subglobose to short- 

 oblong, dull orange-red, marked by large pale dots, |' in diameter; calyx enlarged, 

 with spreading serrate lobes villose on the upper side, mostly deciduous from the 

 ripe fruit; flesh thin, yellow-green, dry and mealy; nutlets 3-5, thin, narrowed at 

 the ends, obscurely ridged on the back, with a broad low often grooved ridge, about 



tV long. 



A tree, 18-20 high, with a short trunk 8'-12' in diameter, covered with dark 

 brown or nearly black scaly bark, small ascending branches forming an irregular 

 open head, and slender nearly straight branchlets, dark orange-green tinged with red 

 when they first appear, becoming before autumn bright reddish brown and very 

 lustrous, and dull reddish brown the following year, and armed with numerous stout 

 nearly straight bright chestnut-brown shining spines 1^' to 2' long. 



Distribution. Low woods near Fulton, Arkansas, in the valley of the Red River; 

 not common. 



