ROSACE^E 



433 



spreading in old age into a broad symmetrical round-topped head, and branchlets 

 dark bronze-green and covered with long matted white hairs when they first appear, 

 becoming dull reddish brown and ultimately pale ashy gray, and armed with occa- 

 sional thin nearly straight bright chestnut-brown lustrous spines usually about 2' 

 long, or often unarmed. 



Distribution. Rich bottom-lands, central and western Texas. 



66. Crataegus quercina, Ashe. 



Leaves oval to obovate, usually acute or occasionally rounded at the apex, full 

 and rounded and gradually or abruptly narrowed to the entire base, irregularly 



doubly serrate above, with slender glandular teeth, when they unfold conspicuously 

 plicate, often dark red and coated with long soft pale hairs and covered below with 

 a thick coat of silvery white shining tomentum, about one third grown when the flowers 

 open from the middle to the end of March, and at maturity thin but firm in texture, 

 dark green, lustrous and scabrous above, pale and pubescent or tomentose below, 

 2'-2' long and broad, with slender midribs, 4 or 5 pairs of thin primary veins, 

 and conspicuous reticulate veinlets; their petioles stout, tomentose, about ^' long; on 

 leading shoots broadly ovate or oblong-oval, full and rounded at the base, somewhat 

 divided into 3 or 4 pairs of short acute lobes, frequently 4' long and broad, with 

 foliaceous lunate coarsely glandular-dentate stipitate stipules f long. Flowers ^ 

 in diameter, on long slender tomentose pedicels, in broad many-flowered lax hoary - 

 tomentose corymbs, with oblong-obovate glandular-serrate villose bracts and bract- 

 lets; calyx-tube narrowly obconic, hoary-tomentose, the lobes short, acute, coarsely 

 glandular-serrate, and tomentose; stamens 20; anthers small, dark red; styles 5, 

 surrounded at the base by tufts of long snow-white hairs. Fruit ripening after the 

 middle of October, on slender nearlv glabrous pedicels, in few-fruited tomentose 

 spreading clusters, subglobose but often rather longer than broad, full and rounded 

 at the ends, tomentose until nearly fully grown, glabrous at maturity, dark red, 

 marked by numerous large pale dots, about ' in diameter; calyx prominent, with 

 short spreading often deciduous lobes; flesh thin, light yello\v, hard and dry, gener- 

 ally shrivelling before the fruit falls; nutlets 5, rounded and ridged on the back, 

 about \' long. 



A tree, remarkable for the lustre of its white tomentum, occasionally 25 high, 



