Crataegus monogyna

Features

Shrub or small tree, up to 10m when mature, armed with axillary spines up to 12mm long, the longest spines associated with short flowering shoots; stems glabrous, smooth and reddish-brown when young but becoming grey when older. Leaves solitary on vigorous vegetative shoots but in fascicles on short shoots; petiole 5~25mm long, greenish, narrowly winged, grooved above; blade approx. deltoid to rhombic, 35~50 x 35~45mm, deeply lobed, glabrous, dark to mid green above, paler below with primary veins obvious; lobes 3~7, ascending, oblong, usually entire in lower half and sparingly and irregularly serrate near the acute apex; stipules of vegetative shoots reniform with prominently toothed margins, those of short shoots smaller and deciduous. Flowers many in flat corymbs subtended by small leafy acute bracts; bracts often larger and toothed on young stems; pedicels 5~11mm long, often bearing scattered, fine white hairs. Sepals greenish, finely pilose at least in lower part; lobes triangular to oblong, subacute, becoming reflexed. Petals broadly ovate to orbicular, 4~8mm diam., rounded to crenulate, spreading, usually white, rarely red-pink. Stamens < petals; filaments white or sometimes pale pink; anthers pink. Style usually 1. Fruit broadly oblong to subglobose, 7~11mm diam., dark red, shining, crowned by deflexed sepals; nutlets usually 1. (- Webb et. al., 1988)