Distribution. In deep depressions filled with water for most of the year, low river banks and borders of swamps; near Mt. Vernon, Mobile County, and near Selma, Dallas County, Alabama; southern Mississippi (Meridian, Lauderdale County, and Hattiesburg, Forest County); eastern Louisiana; sometimes in St. Tammany Parish covering large tracts almost to the exclusion of other plants; western Louisiana from the coast to nearly the northern border of the state, and eastern Texas to the valley of the Trinity River; rare and local east of the Mississippi River; common westward. The fruit is largely used in making preserves and jellies.
IV. VIRIDES.
CONSPECTUS OF THE ARBORESCENT SPECIES.
Stamens 20. Fruit not exceeding ⅓′ in diameter. Anthers pale yellow. Corymbs, branchlets and leaves glabrous. Bark of the trunk pale gray, close and smooth. Leaves ovate to oblong-obovate, acute or acuminate, rarely rounded at apex; fruit depressed-globose, bright scarlet or orange.41. [C. viridis] (A, C). Leaves ovate, acute, often broadly cuneate at base; fruit subglobose, orange-red.42. [C. ovata] (A). Leaves oval or ovate, acute, rounded or broadly cuneate at base; fruit globose, yellow-green flushed with red.43. [C. vulsa] (C). Bark of the trunk dark brown or nearly black; leaves subcoriaceous. Leaves oblong-ovate to semiorbicular, acute, often short-pointed or rarely rounded at apex; fruit short-oblong to obovoid or globose, dull orange color.44. [C. glabriuscula.] Leaves oval to rhombic, acute or acuminate; fruit subglobose to short-oblong, bright orange-red.45. [C. blanda] (C). Corymbs and branchlets villose-pubescent; leaves ovate or obovate, acute or rounded at apex; fruit subglobose, orange-red.46. [C. velutina] (C). Anthers deep rose color; leaves elliptic to oblong-ovate, acute, acuminate or rarely rounded at apex; fruit globose or subglobose, orange-red.47. [C. arborescens] (C). Fruit ½′—¾′ in diameter. Anthers yellow. Leaves cuneate at base; calyx-tube glabrous. Leaves lanceolate to oblong-obovate, acuminate; fruit short-oblong, dull brick red covered with a glaucous bloom.48. [C. nitida] (A). Leaves obovate to oval or rhombic, acute or rarely rounded at apex; fruit subglobose to short-oblong, dark crimson.49. [C. mitis] (A). Leaves, broad and rounded at base, ovate, acute; calyx-tube villose; fruit subglobose to short-oblong, dark red.50. [C. atrorubens] (A). Anthers rose color; corymbs villose; fruit red. Leaves obovate, oval or ovate, acute, scabrate above; fruit globose to subglobose, anthers deep rose color.51. [C. ingens] (C). Leaves broadly obovate, oval or ovate, acute or acuminate, smooth above; fruit globose or depressed-globose; anthers pale rose color.52. [C. penita] (C). Stamens usually 10; occasionally 12—20; anthers bright red; leaves oblong-obovate to oval, usually acute or acuminate; fruit subglobose to short-oblong, bright orange-red.53. [C. micracantha] (C).
41. [Cratægus viridis] L.
Cratægus Davisii Sarg.
Leaves ovate to oblong-obovate or oval, acute or acuminate or rarely rounded at apex, gradually narrowed to the cuneate base, finely serrate above with incurved glandular teeth, and sometimes slightly 3-lobed toward the apex, tinged with red and slightly hairy above when they unfold, nearly fully grown when the flowers open in April and May, and at maturity membranaceous to subcoriaceous, dark green and lustrous on the upper surface, paler on the lower surface, with large axillary tufts of pale hairs, 1′—2′ long, and ½′—1′ wide, with a thick midrib and conspicuous primary veins; often turning brilliant scarlet late in the autumn before falling; petioles slender, 1′—1½′ in length; leaves at the end of vigorous shoots often deeply laterally lobed with narrow acuminate lobes, and 2½′—4′ long, and 1½′—2′ wide. Flowers ¾′ in diameter, on long slender pedicels, in many-flowered corymbs; calyx-tube narrowly obconic, glabrous, the lobes lanceolate, entire; stamens 20; anthers pale yellow; styles 2—5, usually 5, surrounded at base by conspicuous tufts of pale hairs. Fruit ripening in the autumn and mostly persistent on the branches through the winter, on long slender pedicels, in drooping many-fruited clusters, depressed-globose, bright scarlet or orange, ⅛′—¼′ in diameter; calyx little enlarged, the lobes often deciduous from the ripe fruit; nutlets usually 5, narrowed and rounded at the ends, rounded and slightly grooved or ridged on the back, 1/16′—⅛′ long.
A tree, 20°—35° high, with a straight often fluted trunk 8°—12° tall, and 18′—20′ in diameter, covered with close gray or pale orange-colored bark, small branches forming a round rather compact head, and slender glabrous branchlets ashy gray to light red-brown in their first winter, and unarmed or occasionally armed with slender sharp pale spines ¾′—1′ long.
Distribution. On the often inundated borders of streams and swamps, rarely in drier ground on low slopes; southeastern Virginia (banks of the Blackwater River near Zuni, Isle of Wight County), North Carolina (Salisbury, Rowan County), South Carolina (near Aiken, Aiken County), eastern Georgia (near Augusta, Richmond County, and Macon, Bibb County), western Florida (River Junction, Gadsden County, and Tallahassee, Leon County to the swamps of the lower Apalachicola River), and westward through central and southern Alabama, southern Mississippi, and Louisiana to the valley of the San Antonio River (Sutherland Springs, Wilson County), Texas, and to central and western Arkansas, eastern Oklahoma and southeastern Missouri (Butler County), and northward in the region adjacent to the Mississippi River from Louisiana to northeastern Missouri, and to Pike County, Illinois, ranging eastward in Mississippi to Tishomingo County in the northeastern corner of the state, to northwestern Georgia, southeastern Tennessee, and to Richland County, Illinois; rare and local in the Atlantic and east Gulf states; common and often forming great thickets in western Louisiana, the coast region of eastern Texas, southern Arkansas, and in the region adjacent to the Mississippi River.