Addisonia 47 



(Plate 144) 



CRATAEGUS SPATHULATA 

 Small-fruited Haw 



Native of the southeastern United States 

 Family Malaceab Appi^iB Family 



Crataegus spathulata Michx. FI. Bor. Am. 1: 288. 1803. 



A shrub with spreading branches, or more rarely a small tree up to 

 twenty-five feet tall, the slender branches upright. The zigzag 

 branchlets are slender, at first a light reddish brown, later darker, 

 and are armed with stout straight spines up to an inch and a half 

 long, or sometimes unarmed. The dark green leaves are glabrous, 

 shining above, paler beneath, those on the fertile branchlets fas- 

 cicled and nearly sessile, while those on the sterile branchlets and 

 vigorous shoots are scattered, have manifest petioles, and are some- 

 times deeply three-lobed above the middle, the lobes rounded 

 and crenate-serrate. The blades of the fertile branchlets are ob- 

 lanceolate or spatulate, crenate-serrate above the middle, rounded 

 or acute at the apex, and are up to an inch long and a half inch 

 broad; those on the vigorous shoots are oval or ovate. The white 

 flowers, which are about a half inch across, are in many-flowered 

 cymes, on glabrous pedicels which are long and slender. The 

 hollow receptacle, or hypanthium, is broadly obconic and bears on 

 its rim the short persistent sepals, which are entire or nearly so, 

 and the undulate orbicular petals. The styles are two to five. 

 The fruit is of a bright shining scarlet and about an eighth of an 

 inch in diameter. 



This interesting thorn is distributed throughout the coast region 

 from southern Virginia to northern Florida and westward to Ar- 

 kansas and Texas. It is a frequent inhabitant of rich soil along or 

 near the banks of streams, or in swamps, and is said to attain in 

 western Louisiana and eastern Texas its greatest size. The flowers 

 appear late in May or early in June in the vicinity of New York 

 city, the fruit ripening in October in the same vicinity. The 

 specimen from which our illustration was prepared has been in 

 the fruticetum collection of the New York Botanical Garden 

 since 1900. 



This species was discovered in South Carolina by Michaux, the 



great French botanist, in the latter part of the eighteenth century. 



Its introduction into EngHsh and French gardens occurred in the 



early part of the following century. 



George V. Nash. 



Explanation op Plate. Fig. 1.— Flowering branch. Fig. 2.— Fnuting 

 branch. 



