ROSACER. SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 93 
In some parts of the country the spurs are used as pins to close the mouths of sacks and for 
similar purposes. 
Crategus Crus-galli was introduced into English gardens toward the end of the seventeenth 
century,’ and the first description and portrait of this tree are those of Plukenet, made from cultivated 
plants and published in 1691 in his Phytographia? 
In western Louisiana, and eastern Texas and occasionally in the southern Atlantic states, a variety, 
Crategus Crus-galli, var. berberifolia, occurs with obovate leaves rounded at the apex and covered, 
as are the shoots, the corymbs, and the calyces, by thick pale persistent pubescence, and with orange- 
colored red-cheeked fruit. In its habit, however, in the appearance of its bark, the form and texture of 
its leaves, the character of its thorns, or the nature of its wood, this tree is not distinguishable from the 
ordinary form of the Cockspur Thorn which grows with it. 
The specific gravity of the absolutely dry wood of Crategus Crus-galli, var. berberifolia, is 
0.6126, a cubic foot weighing 38.17 pounds.* 
It was discovered many years ago near Opelousas? in Louisiana, by Professor William M. Carpenter.° 
Crataegus Crus-galli has been more generally cultivated in the United States and in Hurope than 
any other American Hawthorn, and as a cultivated plant it is particularly beautiful. It flowers later 
than most trees, and after its large and beautifully lustrous leaves are fully developed. Its habit is 
always good and often striking; its foliage is less subject to fungal diseases than that of the other 
American species ; and its fruit, which birds do not devour, covers the branches until the spring without 
losing color. It is the best of the American Hawthorns to plant in hedges,’ and for more than a century 
has been used in some parts of the eastern states for this purpose.® 
1 Aiton, Hort. Kew. ii. 170.— Loudon, Arb. Brit. ii. 820, £. 574, 
575, t. 
2 Mespilus aculeata Pyrifolia denticulata splendens, fructu insigni 
rutilo Virginiensis, t. 46, f. 1; Alm. Bot. 249.— Miller, Dict. No. 9. 
Mespilus ; spinosa, sive Oxyacantha Virginiana. The Cockspur 
or Virginian Hawthorn, Miller, Dict. No. 8. 
Mespilus foliis lanceolatis serratis, spinis robustioribus, floribus 
corymbosis, Miller, Dict. Icon. 119, t. 178, f. 2. 
8 Sargent, Garden and Forest, ii. 464. 
Crategus berberifolia, Torrey & Gray, Fl. N. Am. i. 469. — 
Dietrich, Syn. iii. 159. — Walpers, Rep. ii. 59. — Roemer, Fam. 
Nat. Syn. iti. 115.—Regel, Act. Hort. Petrop. i. 123. — Engel- 
mann, Bot. Gazette, vii. 128. — Sargent, Forest Trees N. Am. 10th 
Census U. S. ix. 82. 
Mespilus berberifolia, Wenzig, Linnea, xxxviii. 125. 
4 Garden and Forest, iii. 344. 
5 This tree is common four miles west of Opelousas, Louisiana, 
on land adjoining the plantation of Monsieur Pierre Pompon Petre, 
in an open grove of Oaks and Hickories, growing on low moist 
ground with the Hornbeam, the Flowering Dogwood, and the 
Parsley Haw, close to the border of a prairie surrounded by broad 
masses of Crataegus brachyacantha. 
6 William M. Carpenter (1811-1848) was born in St. Francisville 
in the parish of West Feliciana, Louisiana. In 1829 he entered the 
military academy at West Point, but two years later delicate health 
compelled him to resign, and he left the academy before graduation 
and began the study of medicine in the Louisiana Medical College, 
from which he was graduated in 1836, when he was called to the 
chair of natural history and chemistry in the Louisiana State Col- 
lege at Jackson in his native parish. In the six years during which 
ted with this i he devoted 
himself assiduously to studying the flora of Louisiana, communicat- 
Professor Carpenter was 
ing the results of his observations to the authors of the Flora of 
North America. 
ica and therapeutics in the Louisiana State College, a position 
which he held until his death, six years later. 
with a single species, a lovely white-flowered shrub of the Califor- 
In 1842 he was made professor of materia med- 
Carpenteria, a genus 
nia Sierras, was dedicated to his memory by his friend Torrey. 
7 “The Virginian Azarole with a red fruit, or Linneus’s Crategus 
Crus-galli, is a species of hawthorn, and they plant it in hedges, for 
want of that hawthorn, which is commonly used for this purpose in 
Europe. Its berries are red, and of the same size, shape, and taste 
with those of our hawthorn. Yet this tree does not seem to make 
a good hedge, for its leaves were already fallen, whilst other trees 
still preserved theirs.” (Kalm, Travels, English ed. i. 115.) 
8 The name of N tle Thorn, ti 
had its origin in the fact that it was once largely used as a hedge 
plant by the farmers of Newcastle County, Delaware. 
given to this species, 
