Comments: In 1899 this species was discovered in Rome, Georgia by Charles L. Boynton (1864-1943), and Chauncey D. Beadle (1866-1950), the botanists from the Biltmore Herbarium in North Carolina.

In April 2005 the hawthorn enthusiasts searched for Crataegus tristis Beadle, Minute Hawthorn, an endemic species in Floyd County for three days and rediscovered it in South Rome on April 24, 2005. The last time it was collected was in 1902 in South Rome and it was found in that area in 2005 after more than one hundred years. Ron W. Lance, a hawthorn specialist from North Carolina led the search and he rediscovered Crataegus tristis Beadle. Participants of the search were: Richard and Teresa Ware, Rome; Erick H. Lindberg, Rome-Floyd County Environmental Services; J. Mincy Moffett, a botanist Georgia DNR; Malcolm Hodges, The Nature Conservancy of Georgia; Owen Kinney, Darlington School, Rome; Stefan Eady, Darlington School, Rome; Mark D. Lamade, Coosa River Nature Center, Rome; and Zvezdana Ukropina-Crawford, who initiated the search.

Rediscovery of Crataegus tristis Beadle, Minute Hawthorn in South Rome, Floyd County, Georgia from left, Ron W. Lance, North Carolina, Richard Ware, Rome, Georgia, and J. Mincy Moffett, DNR Georgia (April 24, 2005.)

Type locality: on the hills about Rome, Floyd County, Northwest Georgia
Herbarium specimens: Collections at Chapel Hill, NC and Washington, DC

Description: "A large shrub or small tree 3-7 m tall, sometimes with the trunk 2 dm in diameter, clothed with dark or rimose rough, the drooping branches often armed with chestnut-brown or gray spines 2-3,5 cm long: leaves obovate, cuneate, broadly oval or suborbicular, the blades 1.5- 4 cm long, 1-4 cm wide, or pointed or rounded at the apex, narrowed or contracted or on leading shoots sometimes rounded at the base, the margins dentate and glandular; they are slightly pubescent when young, becoming glabrate in age, or with some persistent pubescence along the midrib and in the axils of the veins beneath, firm to subcoriaceou in texture, dull to bright green, fading in autumn with tones to yellow, brown and orange; petioles 5 mm- 2 cm long, margined, pubescent, glandular: flowers 16-20 mm wide, opening near the end of April and when the leaves are less than half grown; they are produced in simple, glandular-bracteate, 3-5-flowere corymbs which terminate short, leafy branchless: pedicles and hypanthium pubescent: sepals 4-5 mm long, glandular-serrate, reflexed after anthesis: stamens 20, the anthers pink: fruit, which ripens and falls the last of August and early in September, oval or short-oval, 10-12 mm thick, red or orange-red at maturity, the flesh soft: nutlets 3-5, 8-9 mm long, the lateral surfaces nearly plane: hypostile 6-7 mm long." - Chauncey D. Beadle, 1902.

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.) : 84-85
2. Lipps, Emma, Lewis., and H. R. De Selm. " The Vascular Flora of the Marshall Forest, Rome, Georgia." Castanea 34 (1969) : 414-432.
3. Images by Zvezdana Ukropina-Crawford
4. USDA, NRCS. 2008. The PLANTS Database (http://plants.usda.gov, 11 February 2008). National Plant Data Center, Baton Rouge, LA 70874-4490 USA.

Last updated on February 11, 2008.

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