Crataegus aemula Beadle, Rome's Hawthorn at the Coosa Valley Prairies, Floyd County, Northwest Georgia (April 08 and 10, 2008.)
	Scientific name Crataegus aemula Beadle Common name: Rome's Hawthorn Family: Rosacae; Rose Origin: Native Flowering period: April Fruiting period: September Habitat: flatwoods Type locality: Rome, Floyd Co., Georgia Herbarium specimens: Collections at Cambridge, MA, New York, NY, and Washington, DC

Comments: In 1899 this species was discovered in Rome, Georgia by Chauncey D. Beadle (1866-1950), a botanist from the Biltmore Herbarium in North Carolina.

Description:
"A shrub or small tree 3-5 m tall with a short, slender trunk covered with smooth or slightly fissured and scaly dark gray or brownish bark, the ascending or spreading branches forming an irregular crown: spines 3-5 cm long, chestnut-brown or gray, or frequently larger and compound : leaves broadly ovate, oval or suborbicular, the blades 3-5 cm long, 1,5-4 cm wide, acute at the apex, rounded or contracted at the base, the margins serrate and incised ; they are sparsely pubescent on the upper surface at the time of unfolding, smoother beneath, but showing some short, scattered hairs along the midrib and principal veins, becoming in age glabrous or glabrate: petioles 5 mm- 1.5 cm long, pubescent, at least when young, margined, glandular: flowers 14-18 mm wide, appearing when the leaves are about half grown, usually about the 20th of April; they are borne in subsimple, 5-10-flowered corymbs - pedicels and hypanthium sparsely pubescent: sepals lanceolate, about 4 mm long, glandular-serrate or pectinately-glandular: stamens normally 10, rarely 12, the anthers purple - fruit, which ripens and falls early in September, globose or subglobose, 10-13 mm in diameter, red at maturity, the flesh firm : nutlets 3-5, 5-7 mm long, the lateral surfaces plane and the back either smooth or shallowly grooved and ridged: hypostyle about two-thirds as long as the ventral angle." -Chauncey D. Beadle, 1902.

Acknowledgment: John King, a representative of The Campbell Group, L.L.C. provided me with written permission to enter the property of the Coosa Valley Prairies in Floyd County, and I am very grateful.
Ron Lance, a hawthorns’ specialist from North Carolina identified this specimen in 2004 when we were searching for Crataegus aemula Beadle in Floyd County Georgia.

Last updated on February 1, 2010.

References :
1.Beadle, Chauncey D. " Notes on the Botany of the Southeastern States,II." Biltmore Botanical Studies, A Journal of Botany, Embracing Papers by The Director and Associates of the Biltmore Herbarium 1. (1902a.) : 53-54
2. Images by Zvezdana Ukropina-Crawford

Botanical Explorations in Floyd County, Georgia
List of Hawthorns from Floyd County, Northwest Georgia, United States