CRAT^GUS 



CratcBgus, Linnseus, Sp. PL 475 (1753); Bentham et Hooker, Gen. PI. i. 626 (1865); Koehne, 

 Deut. Bend. 227 (1893); Sargent, Trees N. Amer. 363 (1905); Schneider, Laubholzkunde, i. 

 766 (1906). 



Oxyacantha, Medicus, Phil. Bot. i. 150 (1789). 



Azarolus, Borkhausen, Forst. Bot. ii. 1224 (1803). 



Mespilus, sub-genus Cratagus, Ascherson and Graebner, Syn. Mitteleurop. Flora, vi. pt. ii 12 (1906). 



Trees or shrubs, belonging to the order Rosaceae, usually armed with simple or 

 branched spines, which are either axillary accompanying a bud, or terminate a short 

 shoot. Leaves usually deciduous, alternate, simple, stalked, usually lobed, serrate ; 

 stipules often foliaceous and persistent on the long shoots. Buds small, globose, with 

 numerous imbricated scales. 



Flowers, in corymbs, which are terminal on short lateral leafy branchlets ; with 

 quickly deciduous linear bracts and bractlets ; pedicellate, regular, perfect ; calyx 

 superior, with an urceolate, campanulate, or obconic calyx-tube, and five lobes, which 

 are reflexed after the flower opens and either fall off or persist enlarged on the fruit ; 

 petals five, inserted with the stamens on the edge of a disc lining the calyx-tube ; 

 stamens 5, 10, 15, 20, or 25, with filaments broad at the base and incurved ; ovary 

 composed of one to five carpels, concealed in the bottom of the calyx tube and adnate 

 to it ; styles, one to five, free, with dilated truncate stigmas ; ovules two in each cell, 

 erect. Fruit, a false berry or haw, usually umbilicate at the apex, and often crowned 

 by the marcescent calyx-teeth, composed of the fleshy calyx-tube, which encloses 

 one to five stones or nutlets, each containing one seed, the other ovule having 

 aborted. 



This genus is widely spread in the extratropical regions of the northern 

 hemisphere, occurring in Europe, Asia Minor, Siberia, Himalayas, China, and Japan ; 

 and with numerous species in North America. Schneider admits about 150 species 

 in all; but Sargent and other American botanists have already described over 

 500 species in America alone, most of which may be regarded as varieties 

 or hybrid forms. At least sixty species are in cultivation, all of which are either 

 shrubs or small trees, not coming within the scope of our work. The native 

 Whitethorn, which is described below, is now usually considered to comprise two 

 species. 



Crataegus is closely allied to Mespilus, of which it has been made a section 

 by some botanists. The following hybrids, one of which is doubtful, between the 

 two genera are worthy of brief mention. 



