270 



THE ROSE FAMILY. 



The cultivated Service-tree (Pyrus domcstica, Eng. Bot. t. 350) has 

 precisely the foliage of the Rowan P., of which it is believed by some 

 to be a mere variety produced by cultivation. The flowers are rather 

 larger and the styles often woolly, but the only real distinction is in 

 the fruit, which is very much larger, assuming the form of a little pear. 

 It has been inserted in British Floras on the strength of a single tree 

 in the forest of Wyre, near Bewdley, which has, however, been shown 

 to have been in all probability planted there. 



XV. HAWTHORN. CKAT^EGUS. 



Shrubs, seldom growing into trees, mostly armed with stout thorns 

 formed of abortive branches, and differing from Pyrus only in the hard 

 bony consistence of the cells of the fruit. 



The genus is, like Pyrus, spread over the temperate regions of the 

 northern hemisphere, but the species are more numerous in North 

 America than in Europe and Asia. Among those most frequently 

 cultivated in our shrubberies and gardens are the C. pyracantha from 

 south-eastern Europe, and the C. Crus-galli, and some other North 

 American ones. The evergreen C. glabra, from China, now forms 

 the genus PJiotinia. 



1. Common Hawthorn. Crataegus Oxyaeantha, Linn. 

 (Fig. 333.) 



{Mespilus, Eng. Bot. t. 2504. Hawthorn. May. Whitethorn.) 



A thorny shrub or small tree, gla- 

 brous or more or less downy on the 

 calyxes and young foliage. Leaves 

 stalked, narrowed at the base, and more 

 or less divided upwards into three or five 

 lobes or segments, which are irregularly 

 toothed or even lobed. Elowers white 

 or pink, sweet-scented, in sessile corymbs 

 on short leafy branches. Petals broad. 

 Styles 1, 2, or 3. Emit red, globular or 

 ovoid, crowned by the short divisions of 

 the calyx, and containing a hard, bony, 

 1- or 2-celled nut, each cell with a single 

 seed. 



In woods, thickets, and hedges, 

 Fig 333. throughout Europe and central and Eus- 



