1736 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



seem to be in cultivation^ in England. There are several other varieties^ with 

 peculiar cut leaves, none of which I have seen. 



C. Differing from the type in flowers. 



10. Van semperflorens, Dippel, Laubholzkunde, iii. 460 (1893). 



Cratagus oxyacantha, var. semperflorens, Andr^, in Rev. Hort. liv. 354 (1882) and Iv. 140, 

 fig. 26 (1883). 

 A low bushy shrub, which numerous flowers, which appear more or less con- 

 tinuously throughout the season from May to autumn. This was found about 1879 

 at Poitiers by M. Bruant, in a bed of seedlings of the common hawthorn, and was 

 subsequently propagated by grafting. A shrub at Kew is about 2 ft. high. 



11. Var. prcBcox, Dippel, Laubholzkunde, iii. 459 (1893). Glastonbury Thorn.^ 



CratcBgus oxyacantha, yax. prmcox, Loudon, Arb. et Frut. Brit. ii. 833 (1833). 



Flowers, usually appearing at Christmas or early in January, and not ripening 

 into fruit, the leaves being somewhat later ; a second crop of flowers, which produce 

 fruit, is borne in May and June. The original tree,* which grew at Glastonbury, was 

 mentioned by Turner in 1562, and by Gerard in 1597, and had the appearance of a 

 very old tree, when it was seen by Withering = in 1793. From this tree the variety 

 was propagated. A specimen, growing near the Temperate House at Kew, is 

 irregular in the time of flowering, which depends upon the nature of the season. 

 Bean states ^ that, with a mild November and December, the tree at Kew will flower 

 about Old Christmas Day (6th January) ; but if cold weather sets in before New 

 Year, the flowers may not open till March or April. In 1908, owing to the 

 unusual warmth of the autumn, it was in full blossom in the first week of Nov- 

 ember, before the leaves had fallen, so that it was carrying flowers, fruit (derived 

 from the flowers of the preceding May), and foliage simultaneously. 



D. Differing from the type in fruit. 



12. Var. eriocarpa, Dippel, Laubholzkunde, iii. 460 (1893). 

 Cratcegus oxyacantha, var. eriocarpa, Loudon, Arb. et Frut. Brit. ii. 831 (1838). 



1 V&x. JiHcifolia is advertised by Spath, Cat. No. 148, p. 91 (1911-12). 



2 Var. pinnatiloba, Dippel, Laubholzkunde, iii. 458 (1893), is identi6ed by Schneider, Laubholzkunde, i. 785 (1906), with 

 C. microphylla, Koch, Die Weissdorn, 68 ( 1 884), which is a Caucasian species, not apparently in cultivation, though it is given 

 in the Kew Hand-list. Koehne, Deut. Dendr. 238 (1893), however, considers it to be a hybrid between C. monogyna and 

 C, oxyacantha. 



' Chevallier, in Ann. Soc. Agric. Set. Dipart. Indre et Loire, xxx. 70 (1850), describes a similar sport of Prunus spinosa, 

 to which is attached a similar legend. At the Chateau du Chabrol, St. Patrice, on the Loire, midway between Saumur and 

 Tours, there is a large blackthorn, called I'ipine miraculeuse, which flowers every year in the last week in December, even in 

 the severest seasons. The legend is that St. Patrick, while on his way to Tours in a.d. 395, reposed one night in winter 

 under the shade of this tree, which burst forth into flowers and leaves to shield him from the cold. The tree did not appear 

 to be very old in 1850, but is now of considerable size, judging from a photograph sent me by M. Hickel. This curious 

 variety, which may be named Prunus spirwsa, var. pracox, does not seem ever to have been propagated. 



■■ Parkinson, Theat. 1025 {1640), mentions other trees of the same kind at Romney Marsh and at Nantwich. Plot, Nat. 

 Hist. Oxfordshire, 159 (1705), mentions a very old tree, which flowered at Christmas, in Lord Norrey's park in Oxfordshire ; 

 but was uncertain whether it was a graft from the Glastonbury tree or an original specimen of the variety. 



6 Arr. Brit. PI. 459 (1793). Cf. Loudon, Card. Mag. ix. 122 (1 833). However, James Howel, Dodona's Grave, 

 55 (1644)1 implies that the original thorn was destroyed by Puritan fanatics, one of whom " was wel served for his blind zeale, 

 who, going to cut doune an ancient white Hawthorne tree, which, because she budded before others, might be an occasion of 

 Superstition, had some of the prickles flew into his eye and made him Monocular." 



^ Kew Bull. 1908, p. 452. Cf. also J. W. White, Flora of Bristol, 302 (1912), who mentions a specimen at Ipswich, 

 which flowered 14th November 1885, and another at Evesham, which was in flower on 26th November, 1899. 



