Cockspur Thorn
Rich soils, edge of swamps.
Quebec to Manitoba.
Found sparingly in western Vermont (Flora of Vermont, 1900); southern
Connecticut (C. H. Bissell).
South to Georgia; west to Iowa.
A small tree, 10-25 feet in height and 6-12 inches in trunk diameter;
best distinguished by its thorns and leaves.
Thorns numerous, straight, long (2-
inches), slender; leaves thick,
smooth, dark green, shining on the upper surface, pale beneath, turning
dark orange red in autumn; outline obovate-oblanceolate, serrate above,
entire or nearly so near base; apex acute or rounded; base decidedly
wedge-shaped shaped; leafstalks short.
Fruit globose or very slightly pear-shaped, remaining on the tree
throughout the winter.
Hardy throughout southern New England; used frequently for a hedge
plant.
=Crataegus 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 1-2-1/2 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.
=Crataegus 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 Linnaean 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, 1-1/2-2
inches long and 1-1-1/2 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, 1/2-3/4 inch
long. Flowers 1/2-3/4 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 1/2
inch in diameter, with thin, sweet, dry yellow flesh; nutlets 3 or
4, about 1/4 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 1-1-1/2 inches
long. Flowers late in May. Fruit ripens and falls toward the end of
October, usually after the leaves.
Slopes of hills and the high banks of salt marshes usually in
rich, well-drained soil, Essex county, Massachusetts, John
Robinson, 1900; Gerrish island, Maine, J. G. Jack, 1899-1900;
Brunswick, Maine, Miss Kate Furbish, May, 1899; Newfoundland, A. C.
Waghorne, 1894.[1]
[Footnote 1: Prof. C. S. Sargent in Bot. Gaz., XXXI, 12. By permission
of the publishers.]
=Crataegus mollis, Scheele.=
Crataegus subvillosa, Schr. Crataegus coccinea, var. mollis, T. & G.