432 TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



deeply furrowed bark, erect branches, and nearly straight branchlets dark green 

 tinged with red and slightly villose when they first appear, bright red-brown and 

 lustrous at the end of their first season, becoming dark dull reddish brown the fol- 

 lowing year, and unarmed, or armed with slender nearly straight bright chestnut- 

 brown shining spines usually about V long. 



Distribution. Banks of the Desperes River, St. Louis, Missouri; not common. 



65. Crataegus Texana, Buckl. 



Leaves broadly ovate, acute or rarely rounded at the apex, broadly concave-cune- 

 ate, and on leading shoots sometimes truncate or slightly cordate at the entire base, 

 coarsely and doubly glandular-serrate above, and usually divided above the middle 

 into 4 or 5 pairs of wide acute lobes, covered above when they unfold with short 

 soft pale hairs and below with a thick coat of hoary tomentum, more than half 

 grown when the flowers open late in March, and at maturity thick and firm, dark 

 green and lustrous above, pale and pubescent or tomentose below, particularly on 

 the stout midribs, primary veins, prominent secondary veins, and reticulate veinlets, 

 3' -4? long, 2^'-3' wide; their petioles stout, deeply grooved, more or less winged 

 above, at first tomentose, ultimately nearly glabrous, ^' f ' long. Flowers |-' in diam- 

 eter, on elongated slender pedicels, in broad open many-flowered compound to- 

 mentose corymbs, with oblong or obloug-obovate acute conspicuous villose bracts and 

 bractlets often 1^' in length; calyx-tube broadly obcouic, coated with pale tomentum, 



the lobes foliaceous, gradually narrowed from broad bases, acuminate, coarsely gland- 

 ular-serrate, and villose, with long matted pale hairs; stamens 20; anthers large, 

 dark red; styles 5, surrounded at the base by a narrow ring of pale tomentum. 

 Fruit ripening toward the end of October, in drooping many-fruited tomentose ulti- 

 mately glabrous clusters, pear-shaped and tomentose until nearly grown, and when 

 fully ripe short-oblong or slightly obovate, rounded at the ends, bright scarlet, marked 

 by occasional large pale dots, puberulous at the apex, f'-l' long; calyx enlarged, 

 with glandular-serrate usually erect lobes, dark red at the base on the upper side, 

 often deciduous before the ripening of the fruit; flesh thick, yellow, sweet, and edi- 

 ble; nutlets 5, thick, slightly grooved on the back, \'-\' long. 



A tree, often 30 high, with a tall trunk sometimes a foot in diameter, thick 

 branches ascending while the tree is young, forming an open irregular crown and 



