TREES AND SHRUBS. 



CRATAEGUS MOLLICTTLA, n. sp. 



(Tomentosae.) 

 Crataegus mollicula, n. sp. 



Leaves ovate to oval or obovate, acuminate, abruptly or gradually narrowed to the concave- 

 cuneate glandular base, sharply often doubly serrate above, with straight glandular teeth, and 

 slightly divided above the middle into two or three pairs of broad acuminate lobes ; neasly fully 

 grown when the flowers open the middle of May and then thin, yellow-green, lustrous and slightly 

 hairy above, especially along the midribs, and villose below, and at maturity thin but firm in tex- 

 ture, yellow-green, nearly glabrous on the upper surface, paler and villose on the lower surface, 

 from 6 to 8 centimetres long and from 4 to 5 centimetres wide, with thick yellow midribs and 

 slender primary veins ; petioles stout, slightly wing-margined at the apex, densely villose early in 

 the season, becoming pubescent, occasionally glandular, from 1 to 1.5 centimetres in length ; leaves 

 on vigorous shoots rather thicker, ovate to oval, often from 9 to 10 centimetres long and from 6 

 to 7 centimetres wide. Flowers from 1.8 to 2 centimetres in diameter, on long stout densely villose 

 pedicels, in wide mostly fifteen to twenty-flowered corymbs, the long stout villose lower peduncles 

 from the axils of upper leaves; calyx-tube narrowly obconic, thickly coated with matted pale hairs, 

 the lobes foliaceous, acuminate, laciniately glandular-serrate, villose on the outer surface below 

 the middle, glabrous above, villose on the inner surface, reflexed after an thesis; stamens ten ; 

 anthers light yellow ; styles two or three, surrounded at the base by a narrow ring of pale hairs. 

 Fruit ripening early in October, on long straight hairy red stems in many-fruited clusters, sub- 

 globose to short-oblong, bright orange-red, lustrous, marked by large pale dots, from 1 to 1.2 

 centimetres in diameter ; calyx little enlarged, with a deep shallow cavity, and small spreading 

 lobes often deciduous from the ripe fruit; flesh thick, orange color, sweet, and succulent; nutlets 

 two or three, full and rounded at the ends, or when three narrowed at the apex, ridged on the 

 back, with a broad grooved ridge, penetrated on the inner faces by broad shallow cavities, from 

 5 to 5.5 millimetres long and from 4 to 4.5 millimetres wide. 



A shrub, from 2 to 3 metres high, with numerous stems, and stout branchlets light orange- 

 green and covered with long white hairs when they first appear, becoming light red-brown and 

 puberulous in their first season and glabrous and gray slightly tinged with red the following 

 year, and unarmed or armed, with occasional slender straight ashy gray spines. 



Eocky banks of streams near Monteer, Shannon County, Missouri, B. F. Bush, May 14 and 

 October 6, 1905 (No. 8 type), May 14, 1905 (No. 8 A), May and October, 1905 (No. 8 B with 

 only five anthers). 



This species belongs to that section of the great group of Tomentosas with thin leaves pale-pubescent below at 

 maturity, of which Cratcegus tomentosa, Linnaeus, is the type. It is distinguished from the other described species of 

 this section by its ten stamens ; l and of the thin-leaved Tomentosae only Cratcegus Missouriensis, Ashe, of the same 

 region produces its flowers in such few-flowered corymbs. 



c. s. s. 



1 In the Manual of the Trees of North America, Cratcegus Chapmani, Ashe, is described with ten stamens. This is evidently a 

 mistake, for the species is described by Beadle as having twenty stamens; and his specimens from the trees on the bank of the 

 Swananoa River at Biltmore, North Carolina, certainly have from eighteen to twenty stamens. A specimen of a species of this 

 group, however, collected by Boynton at Silver Creek, Floyd County, Georgia, May 9, 1899, and sent to the Ar 

 from Biltmore, has distinctly ten stamens. Unfortunately no fruit of this plant has been collected. 



