288 



Minnesota Plant Life. 



the hawthorns, which have somewhat similar fruits. Haw- 

 thorns are commonly furnished with slender, pointed branches, 

 giving to the twigs a peculiar spurred appearance. Between 

 the different varieties it is exceedingly difficult to discriminate. 

 About six species exist within the state, and they are to be class- 

 ified by the shapes of the leaves and the outlines and surfaces 

 of the fruits. The flowers are borne in flat-topped clusters, 

 reminding one of the flat-topped elder inflorescences. The 

 fruits are never large, 

 being in all the species 

 about the size of choke- 

 berries. Sometimes 

 hawthorn trees fail to 

 produce thorns or form 

 them but sparingly. It 

 is not then easy to dis- 

 tinguish them from the 

 June-berries or choke- 

 berries; but in such 

 instances the flower 

 clusters are usually dis- 

 tinctive, for while those 

 of the hawthorn are, for 

 the most part, flat- 

 topped, the lower flow- 

 ers having longer stems 

 than the upper, the clus- 

 ters in June-berries and 

 chokeberries are pan- 

 icled or but slightly flat- 

 topped. 



Mountain-ashes. The mountain-ashes are very close to the 

 apples and hawthorns. Indeed, they may be regarded as 

 apples with diminutive fruits and compound leaves. Two 

 sorts of mountain-ash may be looked for in the Minnesota 

 woods. They are both low trees with compound, feather- 

 shaped leaves and small white flowers in terminal, compound, 

 flat-topped cymes. The fruits are little red berries, quite like 

 the apple fruits, except that the core has not the papery walls 



FIG. 140. Apple-blossoms. After photograph by 

 Williams. 



