Hawthorn, Green

The Green Hawthorn is small tree or large shrub to 11 m (35 ft) tall and 15 cm (6 in) in diameter. The Green Hawthorn is an excellent tree for backyard wildlife habitat creation or “wildscaping” to attract wildlife because of its dense foliage and edible fruit.
Hawthorns are known for having many thorns on their branches, but the Green Hawthorn has only a few thorns, or sometimes none at all. Thorns that do exist are about 1/2 inch long.

The LEAVES alternate, simple, ovate-oblong, 2.5-6.3 cm (1-2.5 in) long, 1.2-3.8 cm (0.5-1.5 in) wide, glabrous when mature; cuneate or rounded at base, acute to acuminate at apex; margins serrate or doubly serrate, often with shallow lobes toward the base, tufts of hairs present where veins join, dark green above, paler beneath; petioles slender and glabrous.

The FLOWERS – in corymbs, glabrous, 8-20 flowers borne on long slender pedicels, 1.5 cm (0.6 in) wide; calyx 5-lobed; petals 5, white; styles 5; stamens 20, pale yellow; flowers appear from March to April. They form blankets of malodorous 0.8 inch flowers (2 cm) in 2 inches wide (5 cm) inflorescences in June, for a couple of weeks.

The FRUIT are pomes, small, 6 mm (0.25 in), globose, red or orange; 3-5 nutlets, dorsally grooved, which mature in autumn. The fruits are bright red, 0.4 inch in diameter (1 cm) when mature in the fall and persist over winter. They can be used in jellies.

The TWIGS are brown, glabrous, spines mostly absent. BUDS are gray-brown, pubescent on the bud scale edges and somewhat pyramidal.

The BARK is pale gray, scaly, exfoliating to pose an orangish-brown inner bark.