A tree, 20°—25° high, with a short trunk a foot in diameter, heavy ascending branches forming a broad irregular head, and stout zigzag branchlets at first hoary-tomentose, dark red-brown and pubescent during their first summer, becoming darker colored and glabrous the following season, and armed with thick or thin nearly straight dark red-brown ultimately gray spines 1½′—2′ long.
Distribution. Dry sand hills near Aiken, Aiken County, and Trenton, Edgefield County, South Carolina; more abundant at Summerville, west of Augusta, Richmond County, Georgia.
134. [Cratægus aprica] Beadl.
Leaves broad-obovate, oval, or rhombic, acute and short-pointed or rounded and often somewhat lobed at apex, gradually or abruptly narrowed and cuneate at the entire base, and serrate usually only above the middle with small incurved teeth terminating in conspicuous rose-colored ultimately dark red persistent glands, when they unfold deep orange color, roughened above by short pale appressed hairs and sparingly villose below, especially on the slender midrib and remote primary veins, nearly fully grown when the flowers open about the 10th of May, and at maturity thick and firm, glabrous, smooth, and dark yellow-green on the upper surface, pale on the lower surface, 1′—1¼′ long, and 1′ wide; petioles stout, conspicuously glandular, more or less winged toward the apex, villose early in the season, becoming nearly glabrous, usually bright red on the lower side toward the base after midsummer, about ½′ in length; leaves at the end of vigorous shoots often nearly orbicular, frequently more deeply lobed, and 1½′—2′ long and wide, with a stout broadly winged petiole, and foliaceous lunate stipules. Flowers ¾′ in diameter, on slender villose pedicels, in small 3—6-flowered compact simple corymbs; calyx-tube broadly obconic, villose at base, glabrous above, the lobes gradually narrowed from a broad base, acuminate, glabrous, coarsely glandular-serrate; stamens 10; anthers small, bright yellow; styles 3—5, surrounded at base by a narrow ring of pale hairs. Fruit ripening late in the autumn, on stout glabrous or slightly villose pedicels, in erect or drooping usually 2 or 3-fruited clusters, subglobose, rarely rather longer than broad, about ½′ in diameter, dull orange-red, often slightly villose at the ends, marked by numerous small dark dots; calyx much enlarged, with wide-spreading coarsely glandular acuminate lobes bright red at base on the upper side; flesh thin, light yellow, sweet and rather juicy; nutlets 3—5, broad and rounded at the ends, rounded and ridged on the back with a broad low ridge, about ¼′ long.
A tree, occasionally 20° high, with a stem 6′—8′ in diameter, covered with deeply furrowed dark gray bark broken irregularly into small persistent plate-like scales, and becoming on old stems often nearly black, spreading often elongated contorted branches forming a broad open head, and slender zigzag branchlets dark green tinged with red and villose when they first appear, soon becoming nearly glabrous, light orange-brown at midsummer, dark reddish brown or purple before winter, and ultimately ashy gray, and armed with thin nearly straight chestnut-brown spines 1′—1½′ long; or frequently a much-branched shrub, with several stout spreading stems.
Distribution. Dry woods in the foothill region of the southern Appalachian Mountains; southwestern Virginia through western North Carolina to eastern Tennessee and northern Georgia; in northern Alabama; usually at altitudes between 1500° and 3500°; common.
XVI. MICROCARPÆ.
CONSPECTUS OF THE ARBORESCENT SPECIES.
Fruit short-oblong; leaves orbicular to broad-ovate, pinnately 5—7-cleft.135. [C. apiifolia] (C). Fruit subglobose. Leaves broad-ovate to triangular, long-stalked; calyx deciduous from the fruit.136. [C. Phænopyrum] (A, C). Leaves spatulate to oblanceolate, short-stalked; calyx generally persistent on the fruit.137. [C. spathulata] (C).