54 
and remains on the branches until the end of November. This late 
ripening of the fruit after that of the other large-fruited species has 
disappeared makes C. arkansana one of the interesting and valuable 
species. The largest plant in the Arboretum is on the left-hand side 
of the South Street entrance just outside the gate where it is growing 
with a plant of C. suhmollis, a species of the same group, which loses 
its fruit early in September. 
Nearly all the species of the Tomentosae Group, named for one of 
the species, C. tomentosa, and distinguished by the longitudinal cavi- 
ties on the inner faces of the nutlets, have lustrous and showy fruits 
with the exception of C. tomentosa itself and some of the species 
closely related to it. Crataegus prunifolia is one of the handsome 
plants of this group. It is a large, compact, round-topped shrub or 
small tree with brilliant scarlet fruit and lustrous leaves which turn 
bright orange and scarlet in the middle of October. Although this 
plant was cultivated in England more than a hundred years ago and is 
certainly a native of North America, it is still unknown in this country 
as a wild plant. For at least a century botanists have considered C. 
prunifolia a variety of the Cockspur Thorn (C. Crus-galli) because the 
leaves somewhat resemble in shape the leaves of that tree, no one 
apparently having taken the trouble to examine the nutlets. Crataegus 
succulenta is another beautiful member of the Tomentosae Group with 
drooping clusters of scarlet fruits which remain hard until late in the 
autumn and then suddenly increase in size and become soft, succulent 
and translucent. It is a small tree not rare in the region from Massa- 
chusetts to Illinois and one of the handsomest species of the group. 
Crataegus macracantha, another species of this group, is remarkable for 
the long stout spines which thickly cover the branches and which 
would make it a good hedge plant. This species is particularly showy 
when the flowers in large, round-topped compact clusters open in June, 
but the fruit is less beautiful than that of C. succulenta. Species of 
this group are abundant in the neighborhood of Toronto and other 
parts of southern Ontario, and some of these Canadian plants, although 
they are not old enough yet to produce fruit here, promise to become 
important additions to the collection. 
Crataegus nitida from the bottom-lands of the Mississippi River in 
Illinois near St. Louis, a member of a southern group (Virides), is, as 
has often been said in these Bulletins, one of the handsomest of the 
American species cultivated in the Arboretum. It is a wide-branched, 
flat-topped tree sometimes thirty feet high with narrow, dark green 
shining leaves which late in October assume the most brilliant shades 
of orange and scarlet, rather small flowers in numerous crowded clus- 
ters, and drooping, oblong, brick-red fruits marked by small white 
dots. Very diiferent in appearance is another tree from the neighbor- 
hood of St. Louis, C. coccinioides. This has broad, deeply-lobed leaves 
which also become orange and scarlet late in October, but the flowers 
are an inch in diameter with twenty stamens and deep rose-colored an- 
thers. The flowers are arranged in compact from five- to seven-flowered 
clusters, and are followed by subglobose, dark crimson, lustrous fruits 
