460 AMERICAN FOREST TREES 



considerable quantities of forage for hogs. The range is not extensive, 

 being confined to Louisiana and eastern Texas where the tree occurs in 

 low, wet prairies. The largest specimens are forty or fifty feet high and 

 eighteen inches in diameter. It is one of the largest of the thorns, and 

 the best trunks are of size to make small, very short sawlogs, but it does 

 not appear that the wood has ever been manufactured into commodities 

 of any kind. The tree is occasionally planted for ornament. 



BLACK HAW (Cratagus douglasii) reaches its best development on 

 the Pacific coast where trees occur thirty or more feet in height and a 

 foot and a half in diameter. The principal range is west of the Rocky 

 Mountains, from British Columbia to northern California, but it extends 

 eastward to Wyoming, and the tree is found also in northern Michigan. 

 The fruit is black or very dark purple, is edible, and matures in early 

 autumn, falling soon after. The heartwood is brownish-red. No use 

 for the wood has been found on the Pacific coast. 



WASHINGTON HAW (Cratagus cor data}, also known as Washington 

 thorn, Virginia thorn, heart-leaved thorn, and red haw, grows on banks 

 of streams from the valley of the upper Potomac river southward through 

 the Appalachian ranges to northern Georgia, and westward to Missouri 

 and Arkansas. Flowers are rose-colored, the fruit ripens in the fall and 

 hangs till late winter. Trees are twenty or thirty feet high, and a foot or 

 less in diameter. Washington haw is frequently planted in this country 

 and in Europe. 



ENGLISH HAWTHORN (Crat&gus oxyacantha) was introduced into 

 this country from Europe and has become naturalized in some of the 

 eastern states. Thirty or more varieties are distinguished in cultivation. 

 It is worthy of note that, although the United States has more than 130 

 species of thorn trees of its own, with varieties so numerous that no one 

 has yet named or counted all of them, a foreign thorn has been intro- 

 duced and added to the number. 



