Crataegus × media

Middle hawthorn (Crataegus × media)

The Middle - or bastard - Hawthorn (Crataegus × media) is a species of the genus of hawthorn (Crataegus ) within the rose family ( Rosaceae ). He is one of six occurring in Central Europe hawthorn species. He is by wild state crossing from the intervention leagues (C. monogyna ) and the Two Handles leagues Hawthorn (C. laevigata ) emerged.

Description

The Middle Hawthorn is a shrub or rarely a small tree and often has short spined shoots. Its leaves are rough and little or lobed about halfway. The leaf lobes are serrated usually little and coarse, sometimes their tips are also finely denticulate, otherwise they are entire. The lower leaf surface is usually pale bluish green. The stipules flowering short shoots are usually finely toothed and more or less dense, sometimes glands are present. The flowers are single or zweigriffelig. The flower cups is bald or hairy. The sepals are often on the surface -fitting short-haired and always triangular. They are usually as wide as long, in rare cases, they can also be twice as long as wide. They have a rounded or stumpfliche tip, this is also rarely narrowed short and obtuse. The fruits are one or two pithy, plump and dark colored to cylindric or sometimes bright red.

The chromosome number is 2n = 34

The flowering period extends from May to June.

Occurrence

The area of ​​the Middle hawthorn corresponds to its parent species, but it is rarer than this. It grows in natural deciduous mixed forests, hedges, forest edges and on pastures. The species colonized fault zones in the natural vegetation as well as areas in which the environmental conditions change in the smallest space. She is like the intervention Lige hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna) to find open spots.