Chinese haw

Crataegus pinnatifida, the Chinese hawthorn, is a deciduous large shrub or small tree of the rose family (Rosaceae), reaching about 6 metres tall, with grey bark and branches that may bear short, stout thorns or be nearly thornless in cultivated forms. The alternate leaves are broadly ovate and conspicuously pinnately lobed or pinnatifid, with three to five pairs of toothed lobes, glossy dark green above and paler beneath. White five-petalled flowers with numerous stamens are borne in flat-topped corymbs in spring. The fruit is a glossy, deep red, globose to ellipsoid pome roughly 1 to 2.5 centimetres across, dotted with pale lenticels and crowned by the persistent calyx, mealy and tart-sweet in flavour. Native to northern and central China, Korea, Mongolia and the Russian Far East, it grows in open woodland, thickets and on hillsides, and is widely cultivated, the large-fruited variety major being grown for its edible and medicinal haws.