134 MALACEAE 



The flowers are borne in short, erect racemes, which may 

 be either terminal or lateral, and contain usually 5 flowers. 

 Flowering occurs from early to late May, and the blossoms 

 are white, with obovate or oblanceolate, small petals. The 

 juicy, edible fruit matures in July. It is at first cherry red 

 but turns purple black, and at maturity is nearly globose, 

 glaucous, and about ]/^ inch in diameter. The sepals are per- 

 sistent and stand erect on the fruit. 



Distribution. — The Low Shadblow, a shrub of slopes and 

 hills, ranges from Vermont westward to Nebraska and north- 

 ward perhaps to the Mackenzie River. In Illinois, it should be 

 found, on careful search, throughout much of the northern part 

 of the state, but up to the present it is definitely recorded only 

 in Hancock County. 



CRATAEGUS Linnaeus 

 Haw Hawthorn 



The hawthorns are shrubs or small trees usually armed with 

 thorns or spines. They bear alternate, petioled, simple, toothed, 

 usually more or less lobed leaves, and terminal, cymose clusters 

 of flowers, which have 5 sepals that are reflexed after blossom- 

 ing, 5 white or pink, spreading, rounded petals, and 5 to 25 

 stamens with slender, incurved filaments. The ovary is inferior 

 and consists of 1 to 5 carpels capped by 1 to 5 distinct stigmas. 

 The fruit, a globose, pear-shaped, or ellipsoid pome, which may 

 be yellow, red, blue or black, contains 1 to 5 bony carpels, each 

 of which bears 1 seed. 



There are perhaps 300 species of hawthorns. Most of them 

 are natives of the north temperate zone but they range south- 

 ward by way of the table lands of Mexico into the Andes. The 

 center of distribution is said to lie in the eastern United States, 

 and many of the named species have been described from ma- 

 terial collected in Illinois. The naming of hawthorns is ex- 

 ceedingly difficult. Taxonomic botanists have named more than 

 1,000 species from the United States alone, but the consensus 

 is that many of these are hybrids. 



Hawthorns are abundant in almost all parts of Illinois; but, 

 in spite of many collections and careful study in two limited sec- 

 tions of the state, they are by no means well known. There is 

 record of the occurrence of 105 species in Illinois, but neither 



