289 



LVI.— THE MEXICAN HAWTHORN. 



{Crataegus imhescens, H.B.X.). 



O. STAFF. 



Among the few species of Crataegus whicli inhaljit the Mexican 

 iaLlcland one has been familiar to the people of the country for a 

 very long time, mainly on account of its fruits which were and are 

 still made into various kinds of preserves. Hernandez,* who from 

 1571 to 1577 explored Mexico, records it under the name Texocotl 

 or Pomum saxeum (rock apple), a name which is still in use among 

 the Mexicans, its Spanish form being Tejocoto or Texocote. He 

 says of it: " It is a medium-sized tree, with leaves like those of 

 our apjde tree, but rougher and serrate. It grows wild in the 

 mountains, and it bristles with sj^ines. It bears apples like our 

 apples, but they are smaller, not larger than walnuts, yellow, 

 quite hard before they are mature, but almost as soft as grease 

 when ripe. Their taste is, at least to my palate, unpleasant, but 

 many appreciate it. The seeds, which occur in triplets in each 

 apple, are as hard as stones, half-moon shaped, rather large for the 

 size of the apple, two angled with a conspicuous ridge on the back, 

 They are cooked with sugar and honey ill many ways, and thus 

 become mild and not less pleasant to eat than our apples. The 

 Mexican Indians sell them in their markets after they have let 

 them go rotten and thereby deprived them of their raw taste. If 

 they wish to preserve them longer in a fresh state, they sprinkle 

 them with soda and water. The crushed stones infused with 

 water are said to cure skin-rashes and to lower the temperature of 

 the body, particularly if mixed with 'capolin/ "f 



D, Yic. Cervantes, who was professor of botany in the City of 

 Mexico from 1788-1829, also refers to ^^Tejocote'' in his 



Ensayo a la Materia Medica vegetal de Mexico, '':t naming it 



Mespihis mexicana.'^ He says of it that it grows on all the 

 mountains of Mexico and that the fruits and seeds are astringent 

 and corroborant. Sesse and Mocino, who explored large districts of 

 Mexico between 1795 and 1804, likewise knew it and described it in 



a 



<< 



their '' Plantae I^Tovae Hispaniae ''|| as ''Crataegus Cms galli, 

 or '' Texocotl '' of the Mexicans. Their description refers 

 undoubtedly to the ''Texocotl,'' whilst the references to Kalm 

 and Miller and the statement that it also occurs in Virginia, are 

 due to mistakes of identification. They say of it that it inhabits 

 cool and temperate localities mainly in the neiglibourhood of 

 Mexico, and that its *' berries " are sweetish-sour, edible, and used 

 mostly for sweet preserves, as they produce an abundance of jelly 

 which, prej^ared with sugar, is much relished by the Indians, It 

 was from a drawing § of this plant, which Sesse and Mocino had 

 prepared, that De Candolle^ described his Crataegus mexicana in 

 1825, placing it among the *' Species baud satis notae/' How- 



* F. Hernandez, Opera (ecL 1790), vol. ii. p. 508. 



f Frunus capitlu Ca v. 



X Published in El Estudio, 1889 (see p. 2£). 



11 Published as an Appendix of La Naturaleza, ser. ii., vol. i. (1887- 

 1890) and again independently iu 1893. 

 ^ De Caudolle, Caiques Dessins. 

 ^r Be Candolle, Prodromus, vol. ii. p. 629. 



