BILTMORE BOTANICAL STUDIES 



43 



pact head ; or frequently a large, much-branched shrub with one 

 or more stems : bark of the trunk and larger stems ashy-gray, 

 usually blackened near the base, rough ; of the branches and 

 branchlets gray tinged with brown, the growth of the season at 

 first pubescent, becoming glabrous, bright reddish-brown : spines 

 stout, gray or chestnut-brown, 2.5-4. 5 cm l° n g> or more : leaves 

 obovate or, on the shoots, oval, either rounded and frequently 

 with a short abrupt point at the apex, or more acute, sharply 

 and irregularly serrate, especially above the middle, on the 

 shoots more sharply serrate and sometimes incisely lobed ; pu- 

 bescent at the time of unfolding and even so at maturity, but 

 the covering rather soft and inconspicuous, bright green in tone, 

 firm in texture, displaying 3-5 pairs of prominent ascending 

 veins : flowers which appear when the leaves are almost fully 

 grown, produced in pilose-pubescent, branched corymbs, and 

 expand in the vicinity of Mobile, Alabama (type locality), in 

 April : pedicels pubescent, ij min -i.5 cm long, usually bearing one 

 or more narrow, glandular, caducous bractlets : calyx obconic, 

 pubescent, the divisions 4-6 mm long, glandular serrate, reflexed 

 after anthesis : petals nearly orbicular or a little longer than 

 broad, 6-9 mm wide, the upper borders erose : stamens normally 

 10, about 5 mm long : styles 3-5, surrounded at the base with 

 pale hairs : fruit oval or oblong, a,-i4 mm long, 7-io mm wide, red, 

 more or less pruinose, punctate, ripening and falling the latter 

 part of October : nutlets 3-5, hard and bony, 7-8 mm long, 3-4 mm 

 measured dorso - ventrally, the back prominently ridged and 

 grooved and the ventral faces nearly plane. 



Cratcegus signata, an inhabitant of open, mostly dry copses of Southern 

 Alabama, has been generously distributed by Dr. Charles Mohr from collec- 

 tions made from the vicinity of Mobile. From C. ashei 33 the proposed species 

 differs in the number of stamens, narrower calyx segments, shape of fruit and 

 time of ripening, and from C. alabamensis u in the number of stamens, size 

 of fruit and later period of maturity. 



The type sheet is preserved in the Biltmore Herbarium. 



Crataegus teres n. sp. 



A tree 5-6 m tall, with a short trunk, or more often a large 

 much - branched shrub with one or more stems : bark of the 



33 Bot. Gaz. 30:339, 1900. 34 Bot. Gaz. 30:342, 1900. 



