466 



TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



maturity lustrous, dark yellow-green above, pale below, 2'-3' long, l'-2' wide, with 

 thin midribs and 5-7 pairs of thin light yellow veins and conspicuous reticulate vein- 

 lets, turning in the autumn bright yellow and red; their petioles slender, glandular, 



more or less broadly winged toward the apex, ^'-f ' long. Flowers nearly 1' in diam- 

 eter, on long thin slightly villose pedicels, in 2-5 usually 3-flowered simple corymbs, 

 with coarsely glandular-serrate bracts and bractlets; calyx-tube narrowly obconic, 

 glabrous or slightly villose, the lobes foliaceous, acute, coarsely glandular-serrate 

 above the middle; stamens 20; anthers large, purple; styles 3-5, usually 4, sur- 

 rounded at the base by a narrow ring of pale hairs. Fruit ripening and falling 

 about the middle of September, often only a single fruit maturing from a flower- 

 cluster, subglobose to short-oblong, full and rounded at the ends, yellow or orange- 

 yellow, generally more or less flushed with red, marked by occasional large dark 

 dots, %'% long; calyx prominent, with an elongated tube and closely appressed 

 lobes; flesh yellow, thin, and firm; nutlets 3-5, usually 4, rounded at the narrow 

 ends, prominently ridged and grooved on the back, about \' long. 



An intricately branched tree, rarely more than 20 high, with a tall trunk 6'-7' in 

 diameter, stout ascending branches forming a narrow or sometimes a round flat- 

 topped head, and glabrous branchlets armed with thin straight or slightly curved 

 dark chestnut-brown shining spines, f '-1^' long, or often a large shrub, with few or 

 many stems. 



Distribution. Rocky woods and bluffs in the foothill region of northern Georgia, 

 southeastern Tennessee and northeastern Alabama; very abundant in Alabama at 

 Valley Head and on the low ridges extending southward to the neighborhood of 

 Birmingham. 



XII. PULCHERRIM-SJ. 



Leaves oval to ovate or nearly orbicular, their lobes acute or rounded ; fruit bright red. 



97. C. opima (C). 

 Leaves ovate to oval or obovate, their lobes acute ; fruit orange-red. 98. C. Robur (C). 



97. Crataegus opima, Beadl. 



Leaves oval to ovate or nearly orbicular, acute, gradually or abruptly narrowed 

 and cuneate at the entire base, finely serrate above, with incurved teeth, and usually 



