A tree, 18°—20° high, with a tall trunk sometimes a foot in diameter, covered with close red-brown scaly bark, long comparatively slender spreading or ascending branches forming a handsome symmetrical head, and thin branchlets dark chestnut-brown and slightly villose at first, becoming very lustrous and ashy gray in their second year, and armed with straight or slightly curved shining chestnut-brown spines 1½′—2′ long.
Distribution. Central and western New York to western Pennsylvania (Allegheny and Crawford counties), and to southern Ontario to the neighborhood of Toronto and London; common; passing into var. gloriosa Sarg. differing in its rather larger flowers with pink anthers, larger and more lustrous fruit often mammillate at base and ripening a few days earlier and in its convex leaves. A tree, 20°—25° high, with a trunk often 1° in diameter, and a symmetrical round-topped head; Rochester, Munroe County, New York; not common.
100. [Cratægus Holmesiana] Ashe.
Leaves oval or ovate, acute or acuminate at apex, rounded or broad-cuneate at base, coarsely doubly serrate above the middle with straight teeth tipped at first with prominent dark red caducous glands, and usually divided into 3 or 4 pairs of short acute or acuminate lateral lobes, when they unfold dark red, roughened by rigid pale hairs on the upper surface, and glabrous or sometimes villose on the lower surface, scabrate above, pale yellow-green and nearly half grown when the flowers open early in May, and at maturity thick and firm, almost smooth, conspicuously yellow-green, usually about 2′ long and 1¾′ wide, with a prominent midrib often bright red on the lower side toward the base, and 4—6 pairs of slender primary veins arching to the point of the lobes; petioles slender, nearly terete, glandular, glabrous or sometimes puberulous while young, 1′—1½′ in length; leaves at the end of vigorous shoots often broad-ovate to oval, rounded, truncate or slightly cordate at base, more coarsely serrate and more deeply lobed, and frequently 4′ long and 3′ wide. Flowers cup-shaped, ½′—¾′ in diameter, on long slender glabrous pedicels, in loose glabrous or rarely puberulous many-flowered corymbs, with oblanceolate or linear acute glandular caducous bracts and bractlets; calyx-tube narrowly obconic, glabrous, more or less deeply tinged with red, the lobes long, acuminate, glandular-serrate, or often nearly entire; glabrous on the outer surface, villose-pubescent on the inner surface; stamens usually 5, sometimes 6—8; anthers large, dark reddish purple; styles usually 3, surrounded at base by a narrow ring of pale tomentum. Fruit ripening and falling early in September, on long slender pedicels, in many-fruited drooping clusters, obovoid to ellipsoidal, crimson, lustrous, marked by occasional small dark dots, about ½′ long, and ⅓′ in diameter; calyx enlarged, conspicuous, with erect and incurved glandular-serrate lobes, bright red toward the base on the upper side; flesh thin, yellow, dry and mealy, with a disagreeable flavor; nutlets usually 3, light chestnut-brown, prominently grooved and ridged on the back with a broad rounded ridge, about ¼′ long.
A tree, often 30° high, with a tall straight trunk 10′—15′ in diameter, covered with pale gray-brown or nearly white scaly bark, stout ascending branches forming an open irregular rather compact head, and stout glabrous branchlets dark green more or less tinged with red when they first appear, becoming bright chestnut-brown or orange-brown and lustrous, and ultimately ashy gray, and armed with occasional thick mostly straight bright chestnut-brown shining spines 1½′—2′ long.
Distribution. Rich moist hillsides and the borders of streams and swamps, neighborhood of Montreal and southern Ontario to the coast of southern Maine, central and western Massachusetts, Rhode Island, western New York, and eastern Pennsylvania; most abundant and of its largest size on the hills of Worcester County, Massachusetts. In Sellersville, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, in a form of this species (var. villipes Ashe) the young branchlets, petioles, and corymbs are often puberulous and the under surface of the leaves more or less hairy, especially on the midrib and veins. Passing into var. tardipes Sarg. differing from the type in its darker green leaves somewhat rougher on the upper surface, flowers often ⅘′ in diameter on villose pedicels, and in the shorter slightly hairy pedicels of the fruit ripening early in October.
A tree, in size, habit and bark similar to the species; southern Ontario (neighborhood of Toronto, common, near London, bank of the St. Claire River below Sarnia and Walpole Island, Lamberton County); Province of Quebec (Montreal, Caughnawaga, Isle Perrot, St. Ann’s and Hemmingford); central and western New York.
101. [Cratægus acclivis] Sarg.
