Calyx-tube urn-shaped, the limb 5-cleft. Petals 5, roundish. Stamens many, or only 10--15. Styles 1--5. Pome drupe-like, containing 1--5 bony 1-seeded stones.--Thorny shrubs or small trees, with simple and mostly lobed leaves, and white (rarely rose-colored) blossoms. (Name from κράτος, _strength_, on account of the hardness of the wood.)
[+] _Fruit small, depressed-globose (not larger than peas), bright red; flowers mostly small; calyx-teeth short and broad (except in n. 3); styles 5; glabrous (except_ C. Pyracantha_) and glandless._
C. PYRACÁNTHA, Pers. (EVERGREEN THORN.) _Leaves evergreen_, shining (1´ long), _oblong_ or spatulate-lanceolate, crenulate; the short petioles and young branchlets pubescent; corymbs small.--Shrub, spontaneous near Washington and Philadelphia. (Adv. from Eu.)
1. C. spathulàta, Michx. Shrub or tree, 10--25° high; _leaves thickish, shining_, deciduous, _spatulate_ or oblanceolate, with a _long tapering base, crenate_ above, rarely cut-lobed, _nearly sessile_.--Va. to Fla., west to Mo. and Tex.
2. C. cordàta, Ait. (WASHINGTON THORN.) Trunk 15--25° high; _leaves broadly ovate or triangular_, mostly truncate or a little heart-shaped at the base, on a _slender petiole, variously 3--5-cleft or cut, serrate_.--Va. to Ga. in the mountains, west to Mo.
3. C. víridis, L. A small tree, often unarmed; leaves ovate to ovate-oblong or lanceolate, or oblong-obovate, mostly acute at both ends, on slender petioles, acutely serrate, often somewhat lobed, and often downy in the axils; flowers larger, numerous; fruit bright red or rarely orange. (C. arborescens, _Ell._)--Mississippi bottoms from St. Louis to the Gulf, and from S. Car. to Tex.
[+][+] _Fruit small (¼--{ 1/3}´ long), ovoid, deep red; flowers rather large; styles 1--3._
C. OXYACÁNTHA, L. (ENGLISH HAWTHORN.) Smooth; _leaves obovate_, cut-lobed and toothed, _wedge-form_ at the base; calyx not glandular. More or less spontaneous as well as cultivated. (Adv. from Eu.)
4. C. apiifòlia, Michx. Softly pubescent when young; _leaves roundish_, with a broad truncate or slightly heart-shaped base, _pinnately 5--7-cleft_, the crowded divisions cut-lobed and sharply serrate; petioles slender; calyx-lobes glandular-toothed, slender.--S. Va. to Fla., west to Mo. and Tex.