1734 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



This species is more pubescent than C. oxyacantha, has a differently shaped leaf, 

 and is readily distinguishable, apart from the single style, in the flower and solitary 

 stone in the fruit. It is apparently much more variable in the wild state than the 

 other species ; but some of the supposed varieties may be due to hybridising. Certain 

 forms, which are plainly intermediate in various ways between the two species, are 

 recognised as hybrids by continental botanists 1 under the names: C. media, Bech- 

 stein, Diana, i. 88 (1797) ; and C. intermixta, Beck, Fl. Niederr. Oesterr. ii. 1, p. 706 

 (1892). 



The commonest hybrid form in England has leaves like those of C. monogyna, 

 but with flowers having a glabrous calyx-tube and pedicel. White states 2 that there 

 are several trees of this kind near Bristol, one of which on Leigh Down was noticed 

 to be the last to bloom in 1881, a year remarkable for the abundant blossom of the 

 hawthorn. 



In south-eastern and southern Europe there are peculiar races or allied species, 

 which are not in cultivation in this country, and need not be more than alluded to. 8 



The following varieties have arisen in cultivation : 



A. Differing from the type in habit} 



1. Var. flexuosa, Dippel, Laubholzkunde, iii. 459 (1893). 



Cratcegus oxyacantha, var. flexuosa, Loudon, Arb. et Frut. Brit. ii. 835 (1838). 



Branches spinescent, dense, flexuose, twisted or like a corkscrew. This peculiar 

 variety originated in Smith's nursery at Ayr, and is represented at Kew by a shrub 

 about 15 ft. high. 



2. Var. salisburifolia, Nicholson, Kew Hand-list Trees, 205 (1894). 



Cratcegus oxyacantha, var. salisburicefolia, Spath, Cat., No. 59, p. 61 (1884). 



Branches similar to those of var. flexuosa, but without spines. Leaves with 

 few and obtuse lobes somewhat like those of a Ginkgo tree in shape. This is repre- 

 sented at Kew by a shrub about 5 ft. high, which was planted in 1885. . 



3. Var. pendula, Dippel, Laubholzkunde, iii. 459 (1893). 



Cratcegus oxyacantha, vox. pendula, Loudon, Arb. et Frut. Brit. ii. 832 (1838). 



Branchlets pendulous. Several forms are known. One is said by Loudon to 

 have been picked out of a bed of seedlings at Somerford Hall. Anderson, curator 

 of the Chelsea Botanic Garden in 1830, obtained several pendulous varieties by 

 grafting shoots which were taken from the witches' brooms, that are occasionally 



1 Focke, who describes the hybrid in Koch, Syti. Deutsch. Flora, i. 859 (1892), says that it is common in northern and 

 central Germany, where it is more generally distributed in hedges and plantations than the true species. 



* Flora of Bristol, 300 ( 1 9 1 2). 



* C. atarella, Grisebach, Spicil. Fl. Rum., i. 88 (1843) is a very pubescent form, which occurs in the Balkan States, 

 Hungary, and Transylvania. C. kirsuta, Schur, Enum. PI. Trans. 206 (1866), is very similar and widely distributed in the 

 Mediterranean region. The following are peculiar local forms : C. Insegna, Bertolini, Fl. Ital. vii. 629 (1847), a native of 

 Sicily; C. granatcnsis, Boissier, Elenchus, 41 (1838), wild on the Sierra Nevada in Spain; and C. brcvispina, Kunze, in 

 Flora, 1846, p. 737, a native of southern Spain. 



* In Rev. Hort. 1899, p. 489, it is stated that a form without spines was found in 1893 as a seedling in M. Hemeray- 

 Proust's nursery at Orleans ; but I have not seen it in commerce. A compact dwarf spineless variety (var. inertnis compacta) 

 is advertised by Simon-Louis. 



