..... Click the link for more information. family), shrubs and trees widely distributed in north temperate climates and especially common in E North America. They usually have thorns, clusters of white (rarely rose-colored) flowers in the spring, and colorful orange, red, or yellow (rarely blue or black) fruits in the fall. The fruits, called haws, resemble tiny apples; some are used in jellies. Hawthorns are cultivated for ornament and, especially in England, for hedges (haw also means hedge). In England the flowers are associated with May Day, and the hawthorn (called also may, thorn, haw, whitethorn, and thorn apple) has long been used as a symbol of spring in English poetry. There are many legends surrounding the hawthorn, e.g., that of the Glastonbury thorn (see Glastonbury Glastonbury , town (1991 pop. 6,751), Somerset, SW England. It has a leather industry, but Glastonbury is famous for its religious associations and many legends. One legend tells that St. Joseph of Arimathea founded the first Christian church in England there.
..... Click the link for more information. , England). English hawthorns are of two species, C. oxyacantha and C. monogyna; the common American hawthorn, with bright red haws, is C. coccinea, called scarlet, or red, haw (as are other similar species). A hawthorn is the state flower of Missouri. Hawthorn wood is very hard and is used for such small items as tool handles. The black haw is a viburnum (see honeysuckle honeysuckle, common name for some members of the Caprifoliaceae, a family comprised mostly of vines and shrubs of the Northern Hemisphere, especially abundant in E Asia and E North America.
..... Click the link for more information. ). Hawthorn is classified in the division Magnoliophyta Magnoliophyta , division of the plant kingdom consisting of those organisms commonly called the flowering plants, or angiosperms. The angiosperms have leaves, stems, and roots, and vascular, or conducting, tissue (xylem and phloem).
..... Click the link for more information. , class Magnoliopsida, order Rosales, family Rosaceae.
hawthorn
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hawthorn
Hawthorn
(Crataegus), a genus of shrubs or, more rarely, low trees, of the Rosaceae family.
The shoots as a rule have more or less well-developed thorns (transformed shortened shoots). The leaves range from whole to pinnately lobed and pinnately cut. The flowers are white, more rarely rosy to red, generally collected into cymes or corymb racemes. The ovary is depressed. The fruit (so-called stone apples or stones) are often spheroid, ovoid, or pear-shaped and are usually red, orange brown, or black. There are about 200 (by other criteria, more than 1,000) polymorphous varieties of hawthorn growing wild in the temperate regions of North America and Eurasia.
There are some 50 varieties (plus close to 75 introduced varieties) in the USSR. The fruit of certain hawthorns is edible. The wood is suitable for small articles. Many hawthorns are decorative. Some of them easily survive pruning and are equipped with developed thorns, so that they are used as living fences. Liquid extract from the fruit or tincture from the blossoms of the thorny hawthorn and the blood-red hawthorn contain some organic acids and vitamins; these are taken for disorders in heart functions, vascular neuroses, hypertonic diseases, and others.
REFERENCES
Derev’ia i kustarniki SSSR, vol. 3. Moscow-Leningrad, 1954.Rusanov, F. N. “Introdutsirovannye boiaryshniki Botanicheskogo sada AN UzSSR.” In Dendrologia Uzbekistana, vol. 1. Tashkent, 1965.
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