108 SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. ROSACED. 
there are two to five styles surrounded at the base with conspicuous tufts of pale hairs. The fruit 
ripens in September and October, and remains on the branches until late in the spring of the following 
year, although it loses its color early in the winter; it is depressed-globular, with a shallow cavity 
surrounded by the remnants of the reflexed calyx-lobes and filaments. 
Crategus cordata is distributed from the valley of the upper Potomac River in Virginia,’ south- 
ward in the foothill region of the Appalachian Mountains to northern Georgia and Alabama, and 
westward through middle Tennessee and Kentucky to the valley of the lower Wabash River in Illinois 
It grows near the banks of streams in rich moist soil, and is nowhere very common. 
The wood of Crategus cordata is heavy, hard, and close-grained; it contains many obscure 
medullary rays and is brown tinged with red, with thick lighter colored sapwood. The specific gravity 
of the absolutely dry wood is 0.7293, a cubic foot weighing 45.45 pounds. 
Crategus cordata was known in Europe before the end of the seventeenth century, and Plukenet 
published in his Phytographia, in 1691,° a figure which well represents the foliage, and which was 
probably made from a cultivated tree. 
As an ornamental plant Crategus cordata is one of the most valuable of the genus, and few 
small trees of the North American forests exceed it in beauty; it is hardy as far north at least as New 
England, where it flowers in the middle of June and later than any other Hawthorn ; it grows rapidly, 
its habit is excellent, its handsome foliage is seldom injured by fungal diseases, and, late in the autumn 
after the leaves of many trees have fallen, changes slowly to brilliant shades of orange and scarlet which 
heighten the effect produced by the bright persistent fruit. 
The Washington Thorn was once much used in the middle states for hedges, and is still occasion- 
ally planted in American gardens; it is better known, however, in those of Europe, and fine old 
specimens are not uncommon in England, France, and Germany. 
1 Crategus cordata now grows spontaneously and perhaps natu- 
rally, as Professor Porter believes, in Penryn, Lebanon County, 
Pennsylvania, where it was found in 1891 by Mr. J. K. Small. 
2 Patterson, Cat. Pl. Jil. 13. 
8 Mespilus Virginiana Apii folio, vulgari similis major, grandiori- 
bus spinis, t. 46, £. 3; Alm. Bot. 249.— Miller, Dict. No. 10.— Cat. 
Pl. Lond. 49, t. 3, £. 1. 
EXPLANATION 
Puate CLXXXVI. 
A nutlet, natural size. 
GOES COIR LS SOS 
Mespilus folio cordato ovatis acuminatis marginibus acute serratis 
ramis spinosis, Miller, Dict. Icon. 119, t. 179. 
The popular name by which Crategus cordata is best known, at 
least in American gardens, is said to be due to the fact that early 
in the century it was introduced from the neighborhood of the city 
of Washington into Chester County, Pennsylvania, where it was 
afterwards more generally used than any other plant for hedges 
(Darlington, FV. Cestr. ed. 3, 83). 
OF THE PLATE. 
CRATEHGUS CORDATA. 
A flowering branch, natural size. 
Vertical section of a flower, enlarged. 
A fruiting branch, natural size. 
A fruit, a part of the flesh removed, showing nutlets, enlarged. 
A nutlet divided transversely, enlarged. 
A leaf of a vigorous young shoot with stipules, natural size. 
A winter branchlet, natural size. 
