30 HOUGH'S AMERICAN WOODS. 



HABITAT. From Sonoma Co., Cal., northward in ricli alluvial and 

 low lands along the banks of streams in the vicinity of the coast, to 

 Alaska and the Aleutian Islands, forming in places extensive and 

 almost impenetrable thickets. It is most luxuriant in the valleys of 

 western Oregon and Washington. 



PHYSICAL PROPERTIES. The wood of this species is heavy, hard 

 and strong, with very tine, close grain and medullary rays, and often 

 marked with parenchymatous dots and streaks. It is of a reddish- 

 brown color with abundant yellowish white sap-wood. Specific Grav- 

 ity, 0.8316; Percentage of Ash, 0.41; Relative Approximate Fuel 

 Value, 0.8282; Weight of a Cubic Foot in Pounds, 51.83. 



USES. The wood of this tree is employed in the manufacture of 

 tool handles, mallets, etc., for which it is excellently suited. The 

 fruit is occasionally used by country folk in the making of cider, and 

 by the Indians as an article of food. 



GENUS CRATAEGUS, LINNAEUS. 



Leaves simple and generally lobed; stipules free, and, as with the awl-shaped 

 bracts, deciduous. Flowers mostly in corymbs, white or rarely rose-colored ; 

 calyx urn-shaped with limb 5-cleft, persistent: petals roundish; ovaries 1-5, 

 inferior ; styles as many as the ovaries. Fruit a fleshy, drupe-like pome contain- 

 ing 1-5 hard 1-seeded carpels and bearing on the summit the persistent calyx- 

 lobes. 



Small trees and shrubs armed with thorns, and petioles, calyx-teeth, etc., often 

 beset with glands. 



(Crataegus is from the Greek tcpdros, strength, in allusion to the nature of the 

 wood.) 



210. CRATAEGUS DOUGLASII, Lindl. 



BLACK THORN. YV^ESTERN HAW. BLACK ,HAW. 



Ger., Schwarze Ilagedorn; Fr., Aiibepine noire; Sp., Espino negro. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS -.Leaves broad-ovate to ovate-oblong, 1-4 in. in length, 

 acute at apex, cuneate at base, finely glandular-serrate excepting at base, often 

 incised or three-lobed towards the " apex, puberulous at first but at maturity 

 glabrous, dark green above, paler beneath ; petioles short and broad ; branchlets 

 glabrous and usually bearing stout thorns ^ to 1 in. long (but sometimes 

 unarmed), reddish at "first and finally gray; winter buds about |- in. long, 

 lustrous brown and scales ciliate- margined. Flowers appear in late spring when 

 the leaves are nearly full grown, in many-flowered cymes with caducous bracts 

 and bractlets, from J-f in. across; calyx more or less pubescent, with 

 lanceolate lobes about as long as the tube and having entire, ciliate or finely 

 glandular serrate margins; petals white, with nearly circular limb and short 

 claw ; stamens rather shorter than the petals with stout filaments and pale 

 anthers : pistil with from 2-5 styles about as long as the stamens and generally 

 with pale hairs at the base. Fruit, August to September, subglobose, about ) 

 in. in diameter, lustrous purple black, with sweet edible but thin flesh and thin- 

 walled nutlets grooved on the back. 



Crataegus Douglasii var. rivularis, Sargent,* is the name given to a form more 

 shrubby in stature, found mainly in the dry interior parts of the continent, 



* Crataegus rivularis^ Nutt. 



