LANCE-LEAVED HAWTHORN. 
11 
bers it otherwise than as it now appears. It blossoms 
twice a year, the winter blossoms, which are almost the 
size of a sixpence, appear about Christmas, and sooner, 
if the winter be severe. These produce no fruit.” The 
summer flowers bore berries containing only a single 
seed, which, when sown, produced plants nowise differing 
from the common kind. 
The Common Hawthorn, though so humble in the 
hedge-row, beneath the cropping of the shears, when 
suffered to grow up and stand alone, attains the ordinary 
size of an Apple-tree; and, occupying the village green 
for a long series of years, it becomes connected with our 
earliest recollections of the joyful arrival of spring — the 
old Hawthorn , again white with its fragrant blossoms, 
and their falling on the ground like a shower of snow, 
marks a delightful era in the distant reminiscences of 
the writer, when yet the simplest boon of nature gave 
delight. With these pleasing recollections of the past, 
how touching and graphic are those beautiful lines of 
Goldsmith descriptive of the deserted village. 
— “The Hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade. 
For talking age and youthful converse made! 
How often have I bless’d the coming day, 
When toil remitting lent its turn to play; 
And all the village train from labour free, 
Led up their sports beneath the spreading tree.” 
Plate XLV. 
A branch of the natural size. a. The germ and styles. 
