Addisonia 35 



(Plate 138) 



CRATAEGUS MACROSPERMA 



Variable Thorn 



Native oj the northeastern United States and Nova Scotia 

 Family Mai^aceaej Appl^ Family 



Crataegus macrosperma Ashe, Jour. i^Iisha Mitchell Soc. 16: 74. 1900. 



A shrub or small tree, sometimes up to twenty-five feet tall, the 

 ascending branches with numerous curved spines up to three 

 inches long. The leaves have slender petioles up to an inch long; 

 the blades are membranous, dark yellow-green above, slightly 

 villous, becoming glabrous, elliptic-ovate to broadly ovate, up to 

 three inches long and as wide, the base rounded or truncate, or 

 rarely cordate, the apex acute, with the margins singly or doubly 

 serrate. The corymbs are glabrous or sparingly villous, the 

 flowers from a half to five sixths of an inch broad. The sepals 

 are usually entire and the petals orbicular. The stamens are 

 commonly from five to ten, sometimes twenty. The styles are 

 usually three. The ellipsoid or pyriform fruit varies from scarlet 

 to crimson, and is often glaucous, and is from a half to three quarters 

 of an inch thick; the flesh is soft at maturity and the persistent 

 calyx-lobes erect or spreading; the nutlets are three or four. 



An exceedingly variable species, over fifty names having been 

 given to varieties of little distinction. It is found widely dis- 

 tributed from Nova Scotia and Maine to southeastern Minnesota, 

 North Carolina, and Tennessee. The flowers appear in May, and 

 its fruit is ripe in August or September. The specimen from which 

 the illustration was prepared has been in the collections of the New 

 York Botanical Garden since 1903. 



GsoRG^ V. Nash. 



Explanation of Plate. Fig. 1. — ^Flowering branch. Fig. 2.— Fruiting 

 branch. 



