Southernthorn

Crataegus viridis, the green hawthorn or southern thorn, is a deciduous small tree of the Rosaceae typically reaching 5-15 m in height, with a broadly rounded crown, smooth pale grey to mottled bark, and slender, sharp thorns 2-4 cm long. It is native to the southeastern and south-central United States, ranging from Maryland and Virginia south to Florida and west to eastern Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, and southern Illinois, where it grows along stream banks, in floodplains, swamp margins, and moist bottomland woods. The alternate, simple leaves are ovate to elliptic or somewhat lobed, finely serrate, glossy dark green above and paler below, turning red to bronze in autumn. White five-petaled flowers about 1.5 cm across with pink anthers are borne in flat-topped corymbs in spring, followed by small, persistent, bright red to orange pomes 6-8 mm wide, especially showy in the cultivar 'Winter King'.