Leaves ovate, acute or acuminate at apex, rounded at the entire base, sharply and often doubly serrate above with gland-tipped teeth, and slightly and irregularly divided into short acute lateral lobes, when they unfold dark red and coated with short soft pale hairs most abundant on the upper surface, about half grown when the flowers open at the end of April and then nearly glabrous, and at maturity thin, dark yellow-green and smooth or scabrate above, pale and glabrous below, or occasionally villose along the under side of the slender midrib, and of 3 or 4 pairs of thin primary veins extending to the point of the lobes, about 2′ long and 1½′—1¾′ wide; petioles slender, glandular, about 1′ in length; leaves at the end of vigorous shoots often deltoid, truncate or cordate at base, more coarsely serrate, more deeply lobed, and often 2½′ long and wide. Flowers about ¾′ in diameter, on slender pedicels, in compact few-flowered thin-branched glabrous corymbs, with linear glandular bright red caducous bracts and bractlets; calyx-tube narrowly obconic, glabrous, the lobes gradually narrowed, acuminate, glabrous, entire or glandular-serrate; stamens 10; anthers large, dark rose color; styles 3—5, surrounded at base by a narrow ring of pale hairs. Fruit ripening at the end of September and soon falling, on short pedicels, in erect few-fruited clusters, subglobose and often a little broader than long, red or greenish yellow, with a rosy cheek, about ½′ in diameter; calyx little enlarged, with spreading lobes usually deciduous before the fruit ripens; flesh thin and yellow; nutlets 3—5, about ¼′ long.
A tree, sometimes 30° high, with a tall straight trunk 6′—8′ in diameter, covered with close or slightly fissured bark broken into small gray or red-brown scales, and often armed with long stout branched gray spines, ascending or spreading branches forming a narrow irregular or round-topped head, and slender branchlets dark green tinged with red and covered with long pale scattered white hairs when they first appear, soon becoming glabrous, bright red-brown during their first year, and ultimately ashy gray, and armed with few or many thin straight or somewhat curved bright chestnut-brown spines 1½′—2′ long; or in dry soil of upland forests usually a shrub, with numerous stems.
Distribution. Low moist flat woods; northern Alabama and northwestern and central Georgia, and occasionally on the drier uplands of the surrounding country; common; central Mississippi (Pelahatchee, Rankin County; Jackson, Hinds County, and in Franklin County); eastern Louisiana (Holtsville, St. Tammany Parish, anthers pink, R. S. Cocks).
59. [Cratægus diffusa] Sarg.
Cratægus Beckwithæ Sarg.
Cratægus Robbinsiana Sarg.
Leaves ovate, acute or acuminate at apex, rounded, truncate or cordate at the entire base, often doubly serrate above with straight glandular teeth, and more or less deeply divided into 4 or 5 pairs of spreading acuminate lateral lobes, deeply-tinged with red, glabrous below and covered above with short white hairs when they unfold, nearly fully grown when the flowers open from the middle to the 20th of May and then thin, pale yellow-green and hairy above and pale below, and at maturity thin and firm, smooth, dark green and glabrous on the upper surface, pale on the lower surface, 1¼′—2′ long, and 1′—1½′ wide, with a slender yellow midrib, and thin primary veins extending obliquely to the point of the lobes; often turning orange color tinged with red in the autumn; petioles slender, slightly wing-margined at apex, glandular with minute stipitate dark glands, ½′—¾′ in length; leaves at the end of vigorous shoots broad-ovate, usually long-pointed, cordate or rarely truncate at base, more coarsely serrate, more deeply lobed, and frequently 2½′—3′ long, and 2′—2½′ wide, with a stout reddish conspicuously glandular petiole ⅖′—⅗′ in length. Flowers ½′—⅗′ in diameter, on slender glabrous pedicels, in 6—10-flowered corymbs, with linear glandular bracts and bractlets mostly deciduous before the flowers open; calyx-tube broadly obconic, glabrous, the lobes gradually narrowed from a wide base, acuminate at the gland-tipped apex, entire or slightly and irregularly toothed near the middle; stamens 7—10; anthers light rose color; styles 4 or 5, surrounded at base by a ring of pale tomentum. Fruit ripening from the first to the middle of October, on slender pedicels, in few-fruited erect clusters, depressed-globose, rather broader than high, dull red and slightly pruinose, becoming lustrous, and about ½′ in diameter; calyx little enlarged, with spreading appressed lobes bright red on the upper side below the middle and mostly persistent on the ripe fruit; flesh thin, hard, greenish white; nutlets 4 or 5, broad and rounded at base, narrowed and rounded at apex, ridged on the back with a high ridge, about ¼′ long.
A tree, occasionally 30° high with a tall trunk 8′—10′ in diameter, covered with light gray closely appressed scales, comparatively small erect branches forming an open head, and slender slightly zigzag branchlets marked by numerous dark lenticels, green tinged with red and glabrous when they first appear, bright chestnut-brown and lustrous during their first winter, and pale gray-brown the following year, and armed with numerous slender or occasionally stout nearly straight bright red-brown shining spines 1¼′—1½′ long; usually smaller and sometimes a shrub.
Distribution. Valley of the Connecticut River (Walpole, Cheshire County, New Hampshire, and Westminster and Putney, Windham County, Vermont), western Vermont (near Burlington, Chittenden County); eastern, central and western New York; common.