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Crataegus pruinosa (Wendl.) K. Koch

Modern name

Crataegus pruinosa (H.L.Wendl.) K.Koch

Synonyms

Mespilus pruinosa Wendl.

A tree up to 15 or 20 ft high, with horizontal branches; young twigs and leaves quite glabrous; thorns 1 to 112 in. long. Leaves broadly ovate, broadly wedge-shaped to nearly truncate at the base, pointed at the apex, doubly and sharply toothed or triangular-lobed at the upper part; 1 to 212 in. long, two-thirds to fully as wide; reddish when they unfold, becoming dark green above and glaucous beneath; stalks slender, 12 to 114 in. long. Flowers 34 to 1 in. wide, borne in May in rather loose corymbs; flower-stalks and calyx quite smooth; stamens twenty; styles five. Fruit five-angled, 58 in. diameter, globose, at first apple-green covered with a purple bloom, finally dark red, shining, and much dotted.

Native of the southern United States, probably sometimes confused in gardens with C. chrysocarpa, from which it differs in the glaucous under-surface of the leaf, and the plum-coloured young fruits, also the thinner, longer leaf­stalks and flower-stalks.


Genus

Crataegus

Other species in the genus