NAT. ORDER. 



Pomaceoe. 



CRATAEGUS OXYACANTHA. ROSE-COLORED HAWTHORT^. 



Class XII. IcosANDRiA Older II. Di-Pentagynia. 



Gen. Char. Tube, pitcher-shaped. Limb, in five divisions. Cor- 

 olla petals, subrotund. Stamens, seated on a glandular ring, 

 within the calyx. Styles, from two to five, smooth. Fruit, a 

 fleshy pome, somewhat globular, closed, five-celled. Seeds, 

 single or two together in each cell. Shell, bony. 



Spe. Char. Leaves, small. Branches, spreading. 



The root is long, angular, tough, fibrous, spreadmg, and of a pale 

 yellowish color; the stem is upright, smooth, of a pale red color, 

 and rises from three to seven feet in height; the leaves are rather 

 smaller, and not so deep a green as the common sorts ; the growth 

 is very irregular, the branches spreading obliquely upwards or hori- 

 zontal, with points drooping, thickly set with flower-bearing spurs 

 along their whole length. Their habit, in other respects, is like the 

 common hawthorn. 



The huicthorn is called lohite thorn and maythorn ; in France, 

 Auhepine ; in Germany, hagedorn ; in Italy, hranco spino. It is a 

 shrub, found in various parts of the United States and Europe, and 

 is introduced into narrow plantations, as an undergrowth. We have 

 long had the common scarlet flowering Hawthorn in our shrubberies ; 

 and many of tlie wild ones, like the double white variety, may be 

 seen to die off a bluish tint. But our subject is much more deeply 

 vivid rose color than any other, and no less con.spicuous in this re- 



Vol. iii —89. 



