CHAP. XLII. JROSA'CE^. CRAT^^GUS. 83.5 



f C. O. SOflexuosa Smith of Ayr has the small branches twisted in a 

 zigzag manner. 



Desaijitlon. The common hawthorn, in its wild state, is a shrub, or small 

 tree, with a smooth blackish bark, and very hard wood. The branches are nu- 

 merous and slender, furnished with lateral, sharp, awl-shaped spines. The leaves 

 alternate and deciduous, on longish slender stalks, of a smooth deep green ; more 

 or less deeply 3-lobed or 5-lobed, cut and serrated, wedge-shaped or rounded. 

 Stipules crescent-shaped, very variable in size. (Simt/i.) The flowers are 

 corymbose, terminal, with white petals, but sometimes pink, or almost scarlet, 

 and sometimes apetalous and sweet-scented. Styles several, few, or only one. 

 According to Withering, the varieties found in our hedgerows have, most 

 commonly, one style ; and flowers with three styles are the most rare. On 

 cla)ey soils, he says, the flowers are red, but on light soils, almost always 

 white. (Aira?ig., ii. p.459.) The usual time of the hawthorn flowering is May ; 

 but, in 1783, it began to flower on the 21st of March ; and the year following 

 it was six weeks later. It was almost as early in ITQ^, and as late in 1793. 

 The extreme times of flowering in the Selbornc Calendar are, April 20th to 

 June 1 Ith. {Mart. Mill.) The fruit, which is a pome, and is called a haw, is 

 of a dark red, and varies exceedingly in size and shape : it is sometimes found 

 yellow or black, or occasionally, but rarely, of a greenish orange, or a dirty 

 white. The rate of growth, when the plant is young, and in a good soil and 

 climate, is from 1 ft. to 2 ft. or 3 ft. a year, for the first three or four years ; 

 afterwards its growth is slower, till the shrub or tree has attained the height 

 of 12 ft. or 15 ft., when its shoots are produced chiefly in a lateral direction, 

 tending to increase the width of the head of the tree rather than its height. 

 In a wild state, it is commonly found as a large dense bush ; but, pruned, by 

 accident or design, to a single stem, it forms one of the most beautiful and 

 durable trees of the third rank that can be planted : interesting and valuable 

 for its sweet-scented flowers in May, and for its fruit in autumn, which sup- 

 plies food for some of the smaller birds during part of the winter. In hedges, 

 the hawthorn does not flower and fruit very abundantly when closely and fre- 

 quently clipped ; but, when the hedges are only cut in at the sides, so as to be 

 kept within bounds, and the summits of the plants are left free and untouched, 

 they flower and fruit as freely as when trained as separate trees. The plant lives 

 for a century or two, and there are examples of it between 30 ft. and 40 ft. 

 in height, with trunks upwards of 3 ft. in diameter at 1 ft. from the ground. 



Geographt/. The common hawthorn is found in most parts of Europe; 

 from the Mediterranean as far north as 60^ in Sweden; it is also found in 

 the north of Africa, in Western Asia, and in the south of Russia. In Siberia, 

 a variety with one style and red flowers, Pallas informs us, is abundant ; par- 

 ticularly round Lake Baikal, where it grows to the height of 10 ft. or 12 ft. 

 The species is found in every part of Great Britain ; and, according to H. C. 

 Watson, it rises a little higher on the mountains than t/^lex europae^a. It is 

 always found in a dry soil ; and when that is poor, and at a considerable 

 elevation, the plants do not exceed 4 ft. or 5 ft. in height ; but, in favourable 

 soils and situations, it grows to the height of 12 ft. or 15 ft. ; and when drawn 

 up in woods, to the height of 20 ft. or 30. 



Histori/. Cratae^gus Oxyacantha was known to the Greeks under the name 

 of pyracantha (see p. 17.) ; though it is uncertain whether it was employed 

 by that people or the Romans for any useful purpose ; the oxyacantha of the 

 classics being by some considered as the C. Pyracantha, and by others as the 

 common berberry. It appears from Homer, that, when Ulysses returned to 

 his father Laertes, the good old man had sent his servants into the woods to 

 gather young thorns for forming hedges ; and was occupied himself in pre- 

 paring ground to receive them. {Odyssey , lib. xxiv.) These thorns might 

 have been of the common hawthorn, or of some of the Oriental species of 

 Cratae^gus, or of various other thorn-bearing plants. Varro calls a thorn 

 hedge a natural and living guardian ; and Columella prefers it before the con- 

 structed one, or dead hedge, as being more lasting and less expensive. {De 



3k 3 



