40 



BILTMORE BOTANICAL STUDIES 



the vicinity of Gadsden, Alabama (type locality), the latter part 

 of April and when the leaves are almost fully grown : pedicels 

 glabrous, 8 mm -i.5 cm long, bearing one or more narrow, sparingly 

 if at all glandular, caducous bractlets : calyx obconic, glabrous, 

 the divisions 2.5-3.5 mm long, nearly or quite entire, reflexed after 

 -anthesis : petals 6-7 mm in diameter, the upper margins usually 

 erose : stamens normally 20, 3-4 mm long, the anthers purplish : 

 styles 3-5, surrounded at the base with pale hairs : fruit globose, 

 7-9 mm in diameter, yellowish-green flushed with red, ripening the 

 last of September and early in October : nutlets 3-5, hard and 

 bony, 5~6 mm long, 3-4 mm measured dorso-ventrally, the ventral 

 faces nearly plane and the exterior surface very slightly grooved 

 and ridged or even smooth. 



Cratczgus vulsa is distributed from the " flat-woods " south of Gadsden, 

 Alabama, to the valley of Horseleg creek at Rome, Georgia, prefering rich, moist 

 soil. The proposed species is closely related to C. viridis L. 30 (C. arbor escens 

 Ell 31 ), but may be distinguished by the broader, relatively shorter and more 

 finely serrate and less incised leaves (which do not bear such large conspicuous 

 tufts of hairs in the axils of the veins as is so frequently noticeable in the latter 

 species) the larger, paler colored fruits and coarser seeds. 



The type material, composed of fruit and flowers from the same tree, is pre- 

 served in the Biltmore Herbarium. 



Crataegus opima n. sp. 



Arborescent, 4-7 111 tall, with a trunk i-2 dm in diameter, branch- 

 ing 2-4 111 above ground, the spreading or ascending branches form- 

 ing an oval or round usually open head ; or frequently a much- 

 branched shrub with one or more stems : bark ashy-gray, usually 

 blackened near the base and on the branches tinged with brown 

 and red, the growth of the season glabrous, bright reddish-brown, 

 marked with small, pale lenticels : spines i-3 cm long or larger 

 and branched on the trunk and older branches, straight or 

 curved, gray or chestnut-brown : leaves oval, ovate or orbicular, 

 2.5-7°" l° n g including the petioles, sharply and irregularly 

 serrate and incisely lobed, acute at the apex, contracted at the 

 base (frequently rounded or sub-truncate on the shoots) and 

 tapering into slender, slightly margined petioles 7mm_ 2 .^cm long, 

 glabrous, or with a sprinkling of short hairs along the veins, 



3 Sp. PI. 476, I753- 1 



3 1 Bot. S. C. & Ga. 1 : 550, 1821. 



