Complimentary 
NEW SERIES VOL. VI 
NO. 6 
ARNOLD ARBORETUM 
HARVARD UNIVERSITY 
BULLETIN 
OF 
POPULAR INFORMATION 
JAMAICA PLAIN. MASS. MAY 27. 1920 
American Hawthorns. Twenty of the twenty-two natural groups in 
which the North American species of Crataegus can be arranged are 
now largely represented in the Arboretum collection. Species of the 
Aestivates and the Brachyacanthae which contain some of the most 
distinct and interesting species of the genus are not in the collection. 
To the Aestivates only four species are now referred, inhabitants of 
the coast region of the south Atlantic and Gulf states with an outlaying 
station in North Carolina. They grow where the ground is wet, usu- 
ally in deep depressions often filled with water throughout a large part 
of the year and are slender trees or small or large round-headed shrubs. 
The flowers which are as large or larger than those of any other Haw- 
thorn, with usually twenty stamens and deep rose-colored or pink an- 
thers, are arranged in usually three-flowered clusters and open before 
the leaves unfold. These plants are almost universally called “May 
Haws” in the region where they grow because the scarlet, juicy, sub- 
acid fruit ripens in spring; it makes excellent jelly, and great quanti- 
ties of it are used for this purpose. No species of this group has been 
planted in the Arboretum; they are perhaps worth trying here for Cra- 
taegus is generally a hardy genus, and it is impossible to predict that 
any of its species will fail in any locality. The Arboretum will be glad 
to hear if Crataegus aestivatis or its related species have been culti- 
vated successfully in any part of the world. Crataegus hrachyacan- 
tha, the “Pomette Bleue” of the Arcadians of western Louisiana, 
is a large and handsome tree with lustrous foliage, small flowers in 
many-flowered crowded clusters, and bright blue fruit about half an 
inch in diameter. One of the handsomest of the American Hawthorns, 
it differs from all the species of the genus in the color of the fruit. 
The extreme southern part of Arkansas, eastern and western Louisiana 
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