The following hardy trees and shrubs are the most conspicuous for the beauty of their fruits:--
ARBUTUS UNEDO.--A native of Western Ireland, has strawberry-like fruits of a bright-scarlet colour.
AILANTUS GLANDULOSA, a fine tree over 50 feet high, is very beautiful when covered with its red and yellow-winged fruits; there are male and female plants.
AUCUBAS, grown at first for their ornamental foliage merely, have latterly come into prominence as fruit-bearers; the female plants bear clusters of bright-red berries which remain long on the branches and are very attractive in winter.
BERBERIS.--The fruits of the Berberries are mostly covered with a plum-coloured bloom as in _B. Aquifolium_ and _B. Darwinii_, but none of them is handsomer than our native _B. vulgaris_ and its varieties. These have pendent racemes of fruits, varying in colour from the typical orange scarlet to white, purple, and black. _B. Thunbergi_ coral-red, very beautiful.
CRATÆGUS.--The finest of all the Thorns is _C. Pyracantha_, well named by the French "Buisson ardent." This shrub or small tree is valuable as a graceful evergreen, and when clothed (as it nearly always is in autumn) with its brilliant clusters of orange-red haws, it is one of the most beautiful objects in the garden. It is quite hardy in the open, but bears fruits more abundantly when planted against a wall. In that position also it is more easily protected from birds, which soon destroy the beauty of plants in the open. The variety _Lælandi_ is distinct from the type, but hardier, and bears bright berries in abundance. The Cockspur Thorn (_C. Crus-Galli_) has several varieties, all producing pendent clusters of scarlet haws. The varieties like _pyracanthifolia_, with narrow leaves and flat-topped habit, are the best in this respect; they retain the fruits well into the winter, and are not eaten by birds so freely as many are. The haws of _C. cordata_, the Washington Thorn, are small, but a brilliant orange. _C. punctata_, _C. Azarolus_, and _C. pinnatifida_ have the largest haws of any, and they are of a deep red, but fall early; the two first, however, are variable, and forms with yellow and other coloured haws belong to them. Those of _C. macracantha_ are bright red, and in favourable years are so plentiful as to make the tree wondrously beautiful. _C. coccinea_ and _C. mollis_ have also red haws, larger than those of _C. macracantha_, but they fall soon after they are ripe. The Common Hawthorn is pretty, but more noteworthy is its variety _aurea_, with bright-yellow haws. In _C. oliveriana_ they are black. The Tansy-leaved Thorn (_C. tanacetifolia_) has large yellow fruits, not badly flavoured, and with the fragrance of Apples. _C. orientalis_ has haws of a bright sealing-wax red, but in its variety _sanguinea_ they are of a deeper shade.