BRIEFER ARTICLES 



THE BLACK-FRUITED CRATAEGUS OF WESTERN NORTH 



AMERICA 



Mr. W. N. SuKSDORF has sent me an interesting series of specimens of 

 black-fruited Crataegus collected by him in the neighborhood of Bingen, 

 Klickitat County, western Washington, and has called my attention to 

 some distinct variations in different individuals of these plants. He groups 

 his plants as follows: 



1 (D). Plants with normally twenty stamens; fruit usually in few- 

 fruited clusters, generally not more than 8"^"^ in diameter, and ripening 

 sometimes as early as the first of July and sometimes not until the middle 

 of August. 



2 (X). Plants with rather larger flowers; normally ten stamens; fruit 

 in large drooping clusters often i to 1.2^"^ in diameter and ripening in 

 July. This form seems to be the C. Dotiglasii Lindley of English gardens. 



3 (F). Plants with normally ten stamens; fruit in few-fruited often 

 erect clusters, usually 8 to 10^"^ in diameter, and ripening from July to 

 September, This and the following I cannot distinguish from the X group. 



4 (Z). Plants with ten stamens; fruit as small as that of D and ripening 

 sometimes as late as September. 



The black-fruited thorn of the northwest was discovered by David 

 Douglas, and in 1830 was named by Lindley C. Douglasii {Bot. R^g* 



pi. 810). The figure in the Botanical Register represents the flowers with 

 ten stamens, and in a grafted plant imported from Europe, which I have 

 cultivated for more than thirty years and which I believe to be one of the 

 same strain as the plant formerly in the garden of the Royal Horticultural 

 Society at Chiswick from which Lindley's figure and description were 

 made, the stamens are normally ten, although sometimes by abortion they 

 are as few as five. The stamens of a tree of C. Douglasii sent to the 

 Arnold Arboretum many years ago by Max Leichtlin of Baden Baden 

 are mostly twenty, but are sometimes reduced to twelve or fifteen. The 

 two trees in other characters appear identical, and except in the number of 

 the stamens I have been unable to find any character by w^hich these two 

 forms can be safely distinguished. 



On all the specimens of this black-fruited form which I have seen the 

 leaves vary from obovate to ovate; they are cuneate at the base, rather 



Botanical Gazette, vol. 44] 



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