ROSAOEAE. 



PYRACANTHA. Fire Thorn. 

 (Family Rosaceae). 



Compactly branched shrubs, 

 sometimes grown against walls or 

 other supports, with very sharp 

 spiny twigs: evergreen. Twigs 

 rather slender, subterete: pith 

 small, continuous. Buds solitary 

 or collaterally branched in spine 

 formation, sessile, round-ovoid, 

 with some half-dozen pointed dry 

 scales. Leaf-scars alternate, nar- 

 rowly crescent-shaped or 3-lobed, 

 somewhat raised: bundle-traces 3: 

 stipule-scars minute. Leaves ob- 

 lanceolate, glandular - crenulate. 

 (Crataegus). 



The fire-thorn is one of the many 

 Rosaceae with apple-like fruit 

 which are separated into techni- 

 cally well-defined genera with 

 great difficulty. Though it is 

 usually considered to belong to a 



different genus from the red-haws, many gardeners still 



speak of it as Crataegus Pyracantha. Where it can be grown, 



it is an effective shrub for evergreen hedges. 



Twigs red, somewhat hairy, or glabrate. P. coccinea. 



