﻿sharp. Leaves alternate, deciduous, on longish, slender footstalks, 

 smooth, or sometimes slightly hairy, deep green, glossy, tapering 

 at the base ; more or less 3-lobed, or 5-lobed, cut and serrated, 

 wedge-shaped or rounded. Stipulas in pairs, crescent-shaped, cut, 

 deciduous, varying much in size. The Flowers are sweet scented, 

 and are produced in terminal corymbs ; they are generally white, 

 but sometimes they are pink or almost scarlet. The Anthers are 

 pink, changing to black. The Styles vary in number, from 1 to 2, 

 and sometimes 3, in different flowers of the same bunch. The 

 Fruit is mealy, insipid, mostly of a dark red colour when ripe, but 

 sometimes yellow ; its cells as many as the styles, furrowed exter- 

 nally, and very hard. 



“ Few of our native plants,” says Dr. Hooker, “ present a more beautiful 

 sight than a well-grown bush of Hawthorn, with its dense masses of white and 

 fragrant flowers, backed by the shining dark green leaves ” — It is a most valu- 

 able plant for forming impenetrable, close, durable, and easily raised fences, 

 called quickset hedges, and it bears clipping to any extent. The timber of such 

 plants as grow singly, and attain a tolerable size, is valued by the Millwright 

 and Turner, and the roots by the Cabinet-maker. — Sang observes, that the tim- 

 ber is often spoiled through inattention after cutting ; if it be allowed to lie in 

 intire logs or trunks, it soon heats and becomes quite brittle and worthless ; it 

 therefore ought to be cut up instantly into planks and laid to dry. A decoction 

 of the bark yields a yellow dye, and with copperas is used to dye black. The 

 fruit or haws afford abundant food for small birds during hard Winters, when 

 little else is to be obtained. There are several varieties of this plant cultivated 

 in gardens, as the large scarlet hawthorn, the yellow-beriied hawthorn, the 

 maple-leaved, and the double blossomed ; but perhaps the most remarkable va- 

 riety is the Glastonbury thorn, which frequently blows twice a year, in May, 

 and again in December or January. A plant of this variety, which is growing 

 in the Oxford Garden, has had some fully expanded blossoms upon it nearly 

 the whole of this month (December), and there are several upon it now, (Dec. 

 25, 1834), fully expanded, and a number of flower-buds nearly ready to open. 

 There is a tradition of this variety having sprung from the staff of Joseph of 

 Abimathea, who, with his missionary companions, resolved there (at Glaston- 

 bury) to found the first Christian Church in this land, stuck it into the ground, 

 when it quickly put forth branches and blossoms. A more particular account 

 of this remarkable variety of the Hawthorn may be seen in Withering’s Bot. 

 Arr. (7th ed) ; The Avalonian Guide , (4th ed.) p.50 ; and Loudon’s Mag. of 

 Nat. Hist. v. vii. p. 552. — The largest and handsomest tree of the common Haw- 

 thorn 1 have seen, is growing in the middle of a field about 3 miles fiom Rugby 

 in Warwickshire, on the left hand side of the road going from Brownsover to 

 Coton House, the seat of Grimes, Esq. 



A variety with white fruit is mentioned by Dr. Witiierinc, as having been 

 found near Bampton in Oxfordshire. 



Mcidium laceratum, of Grev. Scot. Crypt. FI. t.209, and Baxt. Stirp. Crypt. 

 Oxon. No. 45 ; and Erineum clandestinum, Grev. Scot. Crypt. FI. 1. 141. f. 2., 

 are parasitical on the leaves of the Hawthorn. The HZcidium is also frequent on 

 the fruit as well as on the leaves. 



When old, the Hawthorn frequently becomes nearly covered with mosses and 

 lichens, especially the grey lichens, Usnea hirta, Evernia prunastri, and 

 Kamalina farinacea • “ They,” says Dr. Johnston, in his very interesting 

 Flora of Berwick, “ who have wandered across moors, or in our retired dells, 

 will often have noticed — ’tis a common object — a thorn with few leaves and 

 many a withered branch, old certainly, yet firm and unalterable for many a year, 

 hung in profusion with these lichens. Such a thorn Wordsworth has described 

 with his usual simplicity : 



‘ Like rock or stone, it is o’ergrown 

 With lichens to the very top, 



And hung with heavy tufts of moss, 



A melancholy crop : 



Up from the earth these mosses creep, 



And this poor thorn they clasp it round 

 So close, you’d say that they were bent. 



With plain and manifest intent, 



To drag it to the ground.’ ” 



