Article: Midland Hawthorn

?Midland Hawthorn Conservation status: Secure
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae Division: Magnoliophyta Class: Magnoliopsida Order: Rosales Family: Rosaceae Subfamily: Maloideae Genus: Crataegus Species: C. laevigata
Binomial name
Crataegus laevigata (Poir.) DC.

The Midland Hawthorn or Woodland Hawthorn Crataegus laevigata is a species of Hawthorn native to western and central Europe, from Great Britain (where it is uncommon, and largely confined to the Midlands) and Spain east to the Czech Republic and Hungary.

It is a large shrub or small tree growing to 8 m (rarely to 12 m) tall, with a dense crown. The leaves are 2-6 cm long and 2-5 cm broad, with 2-3 shallow, forward-pointing lobes on each side of the leaf. The flowers are produced in corymbs of 6-12, each flower with five white or pale pink petals and two or three styles. The fruit is a dark red pome 6-10 mm diameter, slightly broader than long, containing 2-3 seeds.

It is distinguished from the related Common Hawthorn C. monogyna in the leaves being only shallowly lobed, with forward-pointing lobes, and in the flowers having two or three styles, not just one. However they are inter-fertile and hybrids occur frequently; they are only entirely distinct in their more typical forms.

In the past, Midland Hawthorn was widely but incorrectly known by the name Crataegus oxyacantha. This name has now been rejected as being of uncertain application, though is probably correctly a synonym of C. monogyna (Flora Europaea; Byatt 1974). This is explained further by Bean (1976). Linnaeus introduced the name C. oxyacantha for the single species of which he was aware and it gradually became used for both the Midland and the Common Hawthorn which were assumed to be the same species. In 1775 the Austrian botanist Jacquin separated the two hawthorns botanically, naming the Common Hawthorn C. monogyna whilst retaining C. oxyacantha for the Midland Hawthorn. In 1946 J. E. Dandy showed that Linnaeus had actually only observed and described the single-styled Common Hawthorn, and therefore this would be C. oxyacantha, although the Midland Hawthorn which was effectively a later discovery could use the next available name C. oxyacanthoides Thuill. To avoid confusion, the name C. oxyacantha was formally rejected as ambiguous, although with limited effect since C. oxyacantha continued to be widely used informally, and Common Hawthorn retained its name of C. monogyna. More recently, the Portuguese botanist Franco pointed out that the Midland Hawthorn was described botanically as a separate species as long ago as 1798 by the botanist Poiret, whose name Mespilus laevigata referred to this hawthorn. To reflect this, the botanical name of Midland Hawthorn has now become C. laevigata (Poir.) DC.