Crataegus.

Major entries:

Crataegus azarolus Linn. Azarole.

Crataegus oxyacantha Linn. Hawthorn. Quick. Quick-Set Thorn. White Thorn.

Crataegus tomentosa Linn. Black Thorn. Pear Thorn.

Crataegus aestivalis Torr & Gray. Rosaceae. Crataegus.

North America. The tree bears a juicy, pleasant-flavored fruit which is much used. The fruit is said by Elliott to be large, red, acid and used for tarts and preserves.

Crataegus azarolus Linn. Azarole.

Asia Minor and Persia. Azarole is much cultivated for its fruits, which are the size of a cherry, red, with sometimes a tinge of yellow, and are said to have a very agreeable flavor. The fruit is eaten in Sicily, in Italy and the Levant, being sometimes served as dessert, and is much used for preserves. It is common about Jerusalem, where its fruit is collected for preserves. It is, according to Stackhouse, the mespile anthedon of Theophrastus.

Crataegus coccinea Linn.

Eastern United States. Gray says the fruit is scarcely eatable. Elliott says the fruit is red, large and eatable. The fruit is eaten fresh or mingled with choke cherries and service berries and is pressed into cakes and dried for winter use by the western Indians. The small, purplish fruits are edible.

Crataegus douglasii Lindl.

Michigan and the Northwest. This species bears a small, sweet, black fruit ripening in August. It is largely collected by the Indians.

Crataegus flava. Summer Haw. Yellow-Fruited Thorn.

North America. The fruit is said by Elliott to be oval, red and well flavored.

Crataegus orientalis Bieb. Eastern Thorn.

Greece and Asia Minor. In the Crimea, this species bears little apples, sometimes of a bright yellow and at other times of a lively red color, an agreeable fruit, much improved by grafting.

Crataegus oxyacantha Linn. Hawthorn. Quick. Quick-Set Thorn. White Thorn.

Europe and temperate Asia. The fruit is said by Don to be mealy, insipid, dark red and occasionally yellow. Johnson says it is seldom eaten in England except by children. Lightfoot says that when thoroughly ripe it is eaten by the Highlanders. In Kamchatka, the natives eat the fruits and make a kind of wine by fermenting them with water. In India, says Brandis, the tree is cultivated for its fruit.

Crataegus parvifolia Ait. Dwarf Thorn.

North America. The greenish-yellow fruit is eatable.

Crataegus pentagyna Waldst. & Kit.

Europe and Asia. The plant grows wild in the hills west of Pekin. The red fruit is much larger than the ordinary crataegus; it is collected and an excellent sweetmeat is prepared therefrom.

Crataegus pubescens Steud.

Mexico. A jelly is made from the fruit, resembling that of the quince.

Crataegus sanguinea Pall.

Russia and Siberia. In Germany, this species yields edible fruits.

Crataegus subvillosa Schrad.

Eastern Asia and North America. The large, red fruit, often downy, is edible and of an agreeable flavor.

Crataegus tanacetifolia Pers.

Armenia. The fruit resembles a small apple, about an inch in diameter, and is eaten in Armenia. The Armenians relish the fruits, which resemble small apples, with five roundings like the ribs of a melon, a little hairy, pale green inclining to yellow, with a raised navel of five leaves.

Crataegus tomentosa Linn. Black Thorn. Pear Thorn.

Eastern United States. This species is said, in the Michigan Pomological Society's catalog of 1879, to bear an edible fruit, often of pleasant flavor but which varies much in quality. Probably, this is the "hawes of white thorn neere as good as our cherries in England," noted by Rev. Francis Higginson. Wood says: "The white thorn affords hawes as big as an English cherrie which is esteemed above a cherrie for his goodneese and pleasantnesse to the taste." Josselyn says of it: " Hawthorn: the berries being as big as services and very good to eat and not so stringent as the hawes in England." The fruit is somewhat hard and tough but is eatable and rather agreeable to the taste.

Sturtevant's Edible Plants of the World, 1919, was edited by U. P. Hedrick.