438 
DECIDUOUS TREES, 
THORN TREES. Cratcegus. 
Mostly low, flat-headed trees. Though some of the prettiest 
varieties of the tree-thorns in the world are growing wild in all the 
States, they are so common, and their varieties so numerous, that 
they have been little valued and rarely 
grown in nurseries or pleasure grounds. 
The English hawthorn, of which so 
much has been said and sung, is infe¬ 
rior in foliage to some of our native va¬ 
rieties, and but little superior in flow¬ 
ers or fruit. The varieties of native 
thorn trees are almost as numerous 
as apples in a nursery catalogue, and our descriptions must be 
limited to a few species and varieties, at the risk of leaving un¬ 
noticed many of conspicuous beauty. Nearly all of them are 
observable for the sharpness of their thorns, their abundant clusters 
of blossoms in May, their dense growth and low-spreading forms. 
On most varieties the foliage masses in horizontal and rather thin 
stratifications, especially in the crus-galli members of the family. 
The fruit is generally red, varying from the size of a pea to that of 
a cherry. The larger sorts have a perfumed and quite agreeable 
flavor, and are known as thorn-apples. The abundance of the 
fruit gives a ruddy tone to the trees in August and September, and 
a few sorts are planted in England for the beauty of the fruit alone. 
All the species may be clipped into good hedges, but some va¬ 
rieties of the crus-galli are the best adapted for that purpose. 
The blossoms and fruit are borne in clusters, the former gene¬ 
rally white, and the latter red, though there are varieties with bright- 
colored blossoms, and yellow, green, and black fruit. The time 
of their flowering varies in the different sorts from March to July, 
but most varieties bloom about the last of May, and ripen their 
fruit in September. 
Whether we look at their blossoms, their glossy leaves, their 
dense low growth, the clearly marked lights and shadows of their 
foliage, their facility for trimming into hedges or other artificial 
Fig. 144. 
