TREES AND SI I 111 'lis 



CRATAEGUS SEVERA, Sarg. 



Crataegus sever a, n. sp. 



Glabrous with the exception of the hairs on the upper side of the midribs of the young leaves. 

 Leaves oval to slightly obovate, acuminate or rarely rounded at the apex, gradually narrowed to 

 the long concave-cuneate entire base, and coarsely doubly serrate above, with straight or incurved 

 glandular teeth ; deeply tinged with red and sparingly villose above when they unfold, more than 

 half grown when the flowers open and then thin, yellow-green, and almost glabrous, and at 

 maturity subcoriaceous, dark green and very lustrous on the upper surface, pale bluish green on 

 the lower surface, from 6 to 7 centimetres long and from 3.5 to 4 centimetres wide, with promi- 

 nent midribs and primary veins; petioles stout, wing-margined generally to below the middle, 

 occasionally glandular toward the apex, with minute deciduous glands, from 8 to 10 millimetres 

 in length ; leaves on vigorous shoots thicker, rather larger, and more coarsely serrate, with stout 

 midribs, conspicuous primary veins, and f oliaceous lunate glandular-serrate often persistent stipules. 

 Flowers from 1.2 to 1.3 centimetres in diameter, on slender pedicels, in wide lax mostly eighteen 

 to twenty-flowered corymbs, the long lower peduncles from the axils of upper leaves ; calyx-tube 

 narrowly obconic, the lobes slender, acuminate, entire or minutely glandular-dentate near the 

 middle, reflexed after anthesis ; stamens ten ; anthers pale pink ; styles two or three, surrounded 

 at the base by a narrow ring of pale white hairs. Fruit on slender pedicels, in few-fruited drooping 

 clusters, subglobose, sometimes broader than high, truncate at the ends, dark green more or less 

 tinged with red, from 1.2 to 1.4 centimetres in diameter ; calyx little enlarged, with a wide shallow 

 cavity, and small spreading closely appressed lobes, their tips often deciduous from the ripe fruit ; 

 flesh thin, hard, dry, and mealy ; nutlets usually three, rounded and obtuse at the ends, or when 

 three somewhat narrowed at the apex, ridged on the back, with a high wide deeply grooved 

 ridge, from 7 to 7.5 millimetres long and from 3.5 to 4 millimetres wide. 



A tree, 7 to 8 metres high, with a trunk sometimes 3 decimetres in diameter, large horizontal 

 branches forming a wide round-topped symmetrical head, and stout slightly zigzag branchlets 

 light yellow-green tinged with red when they first appear, becoming dark brown or purple, lustrous 

 and marked by small pale lenticels in their first season and dull gray-brown the following year, 

 and armed with many stout nearly straight gray spines from 5 to 6.5 centimetres long, and per- 

 sistent and compound on old trunks and branches. Flowers appear about the 10th of May. 

 Fruit ripens early in October. 



Low moist soil near streams, Grandin, Shannon County, Missouri, C. S. Sargent (No. 5 type), 

 October 1, 1900, B. F. Bush (No. 410 from the same tree), May 10, 1901. 



From Crataegus Crus-galli, Linnaeus, Crataegus severa differs in its usually acuminate leaves, with p 

 veins, in the hairs along the upper side of the midribs of the young leaves, in the lighter colored anthers, larger 

 subglobose fruit often broader than high, and in its stouter thorns. 



