Cratægus punctata, Jacq.
Thickets, hillsides, borders of forests.
Quebec and Ontario.
Small tree, common in Vermont (Brainerd) and occasional in the other New England states.
South to Georgia.
Thorns 1-2 inches long, sometimes branched; leaves 1-2½ inches long, smooth on the upper surface, finally smooth and dull beneath; outline obovate, toothed or slightly lobed above, entire or nearly so beneath, short-pointed or somewhat obtuse at the apex, wedge-shaped at base; leafstalk slender, 1-2 inches long; calyx lobes linear, entire; fruit large, red or yellow.
Cratægus coccinea, L.
In view of the fact of great variation in the bark, leaves, inflorescence, and fruit of plants that have all passed in this country as C. coccinea, and in view of the further uncertainty as to the plant on which the species was originally founded, it seems "best to consider the specimen in the Linnæan herbarium as the type of C. coccinea which can be described as follows:
"Leaves elliptical or on vigorous shoots mostly semiorbicular, acute or acuminate, divided above the middle into numerous acute coarsely glandular-serrate lobes, cuneate and finely glandular-serrate below the middle and often quite entire toward the base, with slender midribs and remote primary veins arcuate and running to the points of the lobes, at the flowering time membranaceous, coated on the upper surface and along the upper surface of the midribs and veins with short soft white hairs, at maturity thick, coriaceous, dark green and lustrous on the upper surface, paler on the lower surface, glabrous or nearly so, 1½-2 inches long and 1-1½ inches wide, with slender glandular petioles 3/4-1 inch long, slightly grooved on the upper surface, often dark red toward the base, and like the young branchlets villous with pale soft hairs; stipules lanceolate to oblanceolate, conspicuously glandular-serrate with dark red glands, ½-¾4 inch long. Flowers ½-¾ inch in diameter when fully expanded, in broad, many-flowered, compound tomentose cymes; bracts and bractlets linear-lanceolate, coarsely glandular-serrate, caducous; calyx tomentose, the lobes lanceolate, glandular-serrate, nearly glabrous or tomentose, persistent, wide-spreading or erect on the fruit, dark red above at the base; stamens 10; anthers yellow; styles 3 or 4. Fruit subglobose, occasionally rather longer than broad, dark crimson, marked with scattered dark dots, about ½ inch in diameter, with thin, sweet, dry yellow flesh; nutlets 3 or 4, about ¼ inch long, conspicuously ridged on the back with high grooved ridges.
"A low, bushy tree, occasionally 20 feet in height with a short trunk 8-10 inches in diameter, or more frequently shrubby and forming wide dense thickets, and with stout more or less zigzag branches bright chestnut brown and lustrous during their first year, ashy-gray during their second season and armed with many stout, chestnut-brown, straight or curved spines 1-1½ inches long. Flowers late in May. Fruit ripens and falls toward the end of October, usually after the leaves.