




Too! | NORTH AMERICAN TREES ~ 838 
Flowers early in May. Fruit ripens toward the end of 
October. 
Rich woods on the drier parts of the bottom-lands of the 
Mississippi river opposite St. Louis. East St. Louis, Illinois, 
G. W. Letterman, June 10, 1881, and H. Eggert, 1882. Banks of 
Mississippi river, near Oquawka, Illinois, H. WN. Patterson. In 
November 1882, Mr. Letterman collected specimens of a Cratae- 
gus at Prescott, Arkansas, which may possibly belong to this 
species but the specimens are too fragmentary to make the 
determination satisfactory. 
In the Arnold Arboretum the flowers of Crataegus nitida open during the 
first week in June and the fruit ripens towards the end of October and falls 
gradually. At this season of the year it is a handsome object, the large 
leaves of the long vigorous shoots having gradually turned to a rich orange- 
yellow color through shades of bronze and orange-red, while the leaves on 
the shoots of lateral branchlets are still green and very lustrous and make a 
beautiful contrast with the abundant but rather dull-colored fruit. 
This species, which was distinguished by Dr. Engelmann on its dis- 
covery as Crataegus nitens in herb. was not published by him. It has 
been variously considered a variety of Crataegus viridis L., and as a natural 
hybrid of that species and of Crataegus Crus-galli L. The supposition of a 
hybrid can probably be safely dismissed. The plants are too numerous and 
were formerly too generally distributed over the Mississippi bottoms near St. 
Louis to make such a supposition probable; and the seedlings of this tree 
raised at the Arnold Arboretum which flower and fruit freely every year show 
none of the variation found in the descendants of hybrids when these are 
fertile. From C rataegus viridis it differs in its larger and much thicker and 
more lustrous leaves, larger flowers, much larger oblong pruinose fruit, and 
in its dark close bark, the bark of Crataegus viridis being pale or often nearly 
white and covered with thin loose scales. 
” Crataegus Brazoria, n. sp.— Leaves oval to obovate, acute or 
acuminate at the apex, sharply wedge-shaped, or on leading 
shoots occasionally oblong and usually broadly cuneate or some- 
times rounded at the base, coarsely and irregularly glandular- 
Serrate above the middle with spreading teeth, mostly entire 
below; when the flowers unfold covered on both surfaces with 
short soft pale hairs, particularly on the lower side of the thin 
midribs and primary veins, and at maturity thin and firm, gla- 
brous, dark green and lustrous on the upper surface, paler on the 
