Hawthorn (Crataegus)

Nice smaller tree blooms much longer than a crabapple, but the blooms can get rather stinky. Birds do seem to want to eat the fruit. Bloom start out pink, turn white, then go back to pink before falling off. Branches will shatter in heavy snows. Good to at least zone 5.

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There is supposed to be about 100 species native to North America and about 100 species native to Eurasia in temperate climates. They are easy to recognize as a group (genus) but can be difficult to recognize as exact species. All have alternate, toothed, sharply incised, or lobed leaves. They all bear showy, usually white, sometimes pink or rose, coloured flowers from 0.3 to 1 inch in diameter, being apple-like. They bear apple-like fruits (pomes) about 0.3 to 1 inch in diameter of usually red colour, but can be orange, yellow, black, or blue-black. The fruit is edible for birds, various mammals, and humans as raw, cooked, or in jellies or jams. The bark begins as smooth and gray or greenish-brown but matures to brown or gray-brown thin, scaly plates. The wood is hard and heavy, but not commercially important, though the wood has been used for handles and mallets. They usually have sharp thorns, thus part of the common name. This genus is part of the huge Rose Family (Roseceae) that includes similar woody plants of apples, pears, and such. In the eastern half of the USA, nurseries sell three species somewhat commonly of the Cockspur, the Washington, and the 'Winter King' Green Hawthorn. In the wild, one can come across the most common of the wild species as the Dotted, the Downy, the Frosted, and the Scarlet Hawthorns. Many arboretums of the region grow the English and the Single-seeded Hawthorns from Europe in their collections. Otherwise, I have never seen any other species so far, except the Kansas Hawthorn at one arboretum. Of most of the many remaining species, there is not very much information about them online or in books.

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