A tree, sometimes 20° high, with a tall trunk often a foot in diameter, covered with pale gray scaly bark, stout ascending branches forming a broad symmetrical head, and slender zigzag branchlets dark green and clothed at first with long matted pale hairs, becoming in their first summer light chestnut-brown and slightly villose, dark chestnut-brown and very lustrous in their second year, and armed with stout straight or somewhat curved dark chestnut-brown shining spines 1½′—2′ long.
Distribution. Western New York (common) to western Pennsylvania, and through southern Ontario to southern Michigan.
91. [Cratægus Robesoniana] Sarg.
Cratægus spissiflora Sarg.
Leaves oblong-ovate, acute or acuminate at apex, rounded broadly cuneate or rarely cordate at the entire base, sharply doubly serrate above with slender straight gland-tipped teeth, and deeply divided into numerous broad acute or acuminate lateral lobes, villose above and densely tomentose below when they unfold, about half grown when the flowers open at the end of May and then roughened above by short rigid white hairs and pubescent below on the midrib and veins, and at maturity dark yellow-green and scabrate on the upper surface, glabrous on the lower surface, 3′—3½′ long, and 2½′—3′ wide, with a slender midrib, and 4 or 5 pairs of prominent veins extending obliquely to the point of the lobes; petioles slender, more or less wing-margined at apex, slightly grooved, sparingly glandular, villose early in the season, becoming glabrous and rose color in the autumn, 1¼′—1½′ in length; leaves at the end of vigorous shoots cordate or rarely cuneate at base, deeply lobed, often 4′ long and 3½′ wide, with a stout conspicuous glandular petiole. Flowers ⅔′ in diameter, on short slender villose pedicels, in small very compact few, usually 4—6-flowered, thin-branched villose corymbs, with oblong-obovate acuminate glandular bracts and bractlets mostly deciduous before the flowers open; calyx-tube narrowly obconic, coated with long matted white hairs, the lobes slender, acuminate, finely glandular-serrate, glabrous on the outer surface, villose on the inner surface; stamens 10; anthers dark rose color; styles 4 or 5, surrounded at base by a narrow ring of pale tomentum. Fruit ripening at the end of September or early in October, on short reddish pubescent pedicels, in compact drooping clusters, oblong-obovoid to short-oblong, scarlet, lustrous, marked by small pale dots, about ¾′ long, and ½′ in diameter; calyx little enlarged, with spreading sharply serrate lobes often deciduous from the ripe fruit; flesh thick, yellow, dry and mealy; nutlets 4 or 5, thin, acute at the ends, rounded or only slightly grooved on the back, about ⅝′ in length.
A tree, 20°—25° high, with a trunk often 1° in diameter, covered with smooth pale gray bark, and stout spreading branches forming a round-topped head, and stout slightly zigzag dark red-brown branchlets sparingly villose early in the season, soon glabrous, bright red-brown, very lustrous and marked by small pale lenticels at the end of their first season, becoming dark gray or gray-brown the following year, and armed with few stout spreading bright chestnut-brown shining ultimately gray spines 1′—1½′ long.
Distribution. Western Massachusetts through central and western New York to the neighborhood of Toronto, southern Ontario.
92. [Cratægus anomala] Sarg.
