402 



TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



1 . Crataegus Crus-galli L. Cock-spur Thorn. 



Leaves glabrous, obovate, acute or rounded at apex, cuneate and gradually narrowed 

 to the slender entire base, and sharply serrate above with minute appressed usually gland- 

 tipped teeth, when they unfold tinged with red, membranaceous and nearly fully grown 

 when the flowers open about the 1st of June, and at maturity thick and coriaceous, dark 

 green and lustrous above, pale below, reticulate- venulose, l'-4' long, and i'-l' wide, with 

 a slender midrib, and primary veins within the parenchyma; turning bright orange and 

 scarlet in the autumn before falling; petioles stout, \'-\' in length; leaves at the end of 

 vigorous shoots acute or acuminate, coarsely serrate, often 5' -6' long. Flowers -j' in 

 diameter, on slender pedicels, in many-flowered glabrous corymbs; calyx-tube narrowly 

 obconic, glabrous, the lobes linear-lanceolate, entire or minutely glandular-serrate; stamens 

 10; anthers rose color; styles usually 2, surrounded at base by tufts of pale hairs. Fruit 



Fig. 353 



ripening late in October and persistent on the branches until spring, short-oblong to 

 subglobose, \' long, dull red often covered with a glaucous bloom; calyx little enlarged; 

 nutlets usually 2, full and rounded at the ends, with a high rounded grooved ridge, \' long. 



A tree, sometimes 25 high, with a trunk a foot in diameter, covered w r ith dark brown, 

 scaly bark, stout rigid spreading branches forming a broad round-topped head, and gla- 

 brous, light brown or gray branchlets armed with stout straight or slightly curved sharp- 

 pointed chestnut-brown or ashy gray spines 3'-4' long and becoming on the trunk and 

 large branches 6'-8' in length and furnished with slender lateral spines. 



Distribution. Usually on the slopes of low hills in rich soil; valley of the St. Lawrence 

 River near Montreal, southward to Delaware and along the Appalachian foothills to North 

 Carolina, and westward through western New York and Pennsylvania to southern 

 Michigan. 



A form, var. pyracanthifolia Ait., with narrower elliptic to obovate leaves acute or 

 rounded at apex, and slightly pubescent while young on the upper side of the midrib, and 

 with rather smaller flowers and smaller bright red fruit, is not rare in eastern Pennsylvania 

 and northern Delaware; a form, var. salicifolia Ait., cultivated in European gardens, but 

 not known in a wild state, with thinner narrower and more elongated lanceolate or oblance- 

 olate leaves, should also probably be referred to this species. A form, var. oblongata Sarg., 

 with rather brighter colored oblong fruit often 1' long, and nutlets acute at the ends, is not 

 rare near Wilmington, Delaware, and at Durham, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. A form, 

 var. c.apillata Sarg., with thinner leaves, slightly villose corymbs, and 1 or rarely 2 nutlets, 

 occurs near Wilmington, Delaware. 



