ROSACEZ. SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 53 
CRATZiGUS SIGNATA. 
Haw. 
STAMENS 10. Leaves obovate, rounded or acute, thin, bright green, and lustrous. 
Crategus signata, Beadle, Biltmore Bot. Studies, i. 42 Crategus elliptica, Mohr, Contrib. U. S. Nat. Herb. vi. 
(1901). 550 (Plant Life of Alabama) (not Aiton) (1901). 
Crateegus Crus-galli, var. berberifolia, Sargent, Silva 
N. Am. iv. 93 (in part) (not Torrey & Gray) (1892). 
A tree, usually from fifteen to eighteen feet in height, with a tall stem four or five inches in diameter 
covered with ashy gray bark, which is often nearly black near the base of old stems, and separates freely 
into thin plate-like scales displaying when they fall the bright red inner bark, and many ascending or 
spreading branches forming a round-topped or oval compact head. The branchlets are stout, more or 
less zigzag, marked by numerous large pale lenticels, and armed with stout nearly straight bright 
chestnut-brown spines from one to two inches in length; when they first appear they are dark green 
tinged with red and covered with long white matted hairs; soon becoming glabrous, they are bright 
reddish brown during their first season, dull gray-brown during their second year, and ultimately ashy 
gray. The leaves are obovate, rounded and often short-poimted or acute at the apex, gradually 
narrowed from near the middle and cuneate at the entire base, and sharply glandular-serrate generally 
only above the middle; when the flowers open early in April they are usually only half grown and are 
then gray-green, and coated on the upper surface and on the lower side of the midribs and principal 
veins with short pale hairs; and at maturity they vary from an inch and a half to two inches in length 
and from three quarters of an inch to an inch in width, and are thin but firm in texture, dark green, 
lustrous, and slightly pilose on the upper surface, paler and pubescent below along the slender midribs 
and the two to five pairs of primary veins which extend toward the apex of the leaf; they are borne 
on slender glandular grooved petioles winged above by the decurrent bases of the leaf-blades, and 
usually about a third of an inch in length. The stipules are linear, coarsely glandular-serrate, bright 
red before falling, and caducous. On leading shoots the leaves are often broadly oval, more coarsely 
dentate than the leaves of lateral branchlets, sometimes incisely lobed, and frequently two inches and a 
half long and two inches wide, and their stipules are foliaceous, lunate, and coarsely glandular-dentate. 
The flowers are about three quarters of an inch in diameter and bad-smelling, and are produced on 
slender pedicels coated with pale matted hairs, like the branches of the compound few-flowered compact 
corymbs and their linear glandular-serrate bracts and bractlets. The calyx-tube is narrowly obconic and 
villose, with long matted hairs, and the lobes are narrow, acute, entire or irregularly glandular-serrate, 
usually glabrous on the outer surface, villose on the inner surface, and reflexed after the flowers open. 
There are ten stamens with slender filaments and small anthers, and from three to five styles surrounded 
at the base by a few pale hairs. The fruit ripens and falls toward the end of October and is borne in 
few-fruited drooping slightly villose clusters; it is oblong, full and rounded at the ends, dark red, 
more or less pruinose, marked by numerous large pale dots, and about half an inch long; the calyx is 
prominent, with a deep narrow cavity and elongated closely appressed lobes which are usually persistent 
on the ripe fruit ; the flesh is thin, yellow, dry, and insipid. The nutlets vary from three to five in 
number and are prominently ridged and grooved on the back, and about a quarter of an inch in length. 
Crategus signata inhabits open glades and dry copses of the Pine-covered coast plain of southern 
Alabama, where it is common in Washington and Mobile counties. Discovered many years ago by Dr. 
Charles Mohr, it has been variously considered one of the forms of the flava group and as a variety of 
Crategus Crus-galli until its true characters were determined by Mr. C. D. Beadle. 
