Distribution. Banks of streams in rich soil; western North Carolina at altitudes of about 2000°, to middle Tennessee and southern Kentucky; in southern Missouri (St. Francois, Wayne, Shannon, Carter and Ripley Counties), and in Richland County, Illinois; now often naturalized in the middle and Ohio valley states; nowhere common. Often cultivated in the eastern states and in western Europe; hardy as far north as eastern Massachusetts.
137. [Cratægus spathulata] Michx.
Cratægus spathulata var. flavanthera Sarg.
Leaves spatulate to oblanceolate, rounded or acuminate and sometimes 3-lobed at apex, gradually narrowed from above the middle to the slender concave-cuneate entire base, and crenately serrate above, nearly fully grown when the flowers open from March to May and then sparingly villose above with long white caducous hairs, and at maturity subcoriaceous, glabrous, dark green and lustrous above, paler below, reticulate-venulose, with an obscure yellow midrib and primary veins, 1′—2′ long, and 1′—1½′ wide, clustered at the end of short lateral branchlets; petioles slender, wing-margined to the base, ⅛′—¼′ in length; leaves at the end of vigorous shoots often deeply 3-lobed above the middle with rounded coarsely crenately serrate lobes, and narrowed below into a long winged petiole, 1′—2′ long, and 1′—1½′ wide, with a broad thick midrib often pilose on the lower surface, their stipules foliaceous, lunate, sharply serrate, stalked, often ½′ broad. Flowers ½′ in diameter, on long slender pedicels, in glabrous many-flowered narrow corymbs; calyx-tube broadly obconic, glabrous, the lobes short, nearly triangular, almost entire, minutely glandular-apiculate; stamens 20; anthers pale yellow; styles 2—5. Fruit ripening in October, subglobose, bright scarlet, lustrous, about ⅛′ in diameter; calyx only slightly enlarged, with reflexed lobes; flesh thin, dry and mealy; nutlets 3—5, broad and rounded at apex, narrowed at base, 1/16′—⅛′ long.
A tree, 18°—25° high, with a straight trunk occasionally 8′—10′ in diameter, slender upright and spreading branches forming a broad open head, and thin zigzag glabrous light reddish brown branchlets, unarmed, or armed with straight stout light brown spines 1′—1½′ long; more often a shrub, with numerous spreading stems.
Distribution. Rich soil usually near the banks of streams or swamps, or low depressions in Pine-forests; North Carolina (near Albemarle, Stanly County) to central South Carolina, central, northwestern (Rome, Floyd County), and southwestern Georgia to northern Florida (Ocala, Marion County, to River Junction, Gadsden County); northern Alabama southward to Dallas County; eastern and western Mississippi (near Natchez, Adams County); eastern and northwestern Louisiana (Richland, Rapides, Caddo and Natchitoches Parishes); eastern Texas to the valley of the Guadalupe River (near Seguin, Guadalupe County), southeastern Oklahoma (Bennington, Bryan County), and through southern and western Arkansas to southwestern Missouri (Tanney and Jasper Counties); probably most abundant in central Georgia.
XVII. BRACHYACANTHÆ.
CONSPECTUS OF THE ARBORESCENT SPECIES.
Leaves oblong-lanceolate to ovate or rhombic; broad-ovate to nearly triangular on vigorous shoots; fruit subglobose to obovoid, bright blue covered with a glaucous bloom.138. [C. brachyacantha] (C). Leaves narrow-rhombic to oval; lanceolate, acuminate on vigorous shoots; fruit globose, blue-black, very lustrous.139. [C. saligna] (F).