Crataegus laevigata
species of plant
Crataegus laevigata, known as the Midland hawthorn, English hawthorn, woodland hawthorn, or mayflower, is a species of hawthorn native to western and central Europe, from Great Britain (where it is typically found in ancient woodland and old hedgerows) and Spain, east to Romania and Ukraine. The species name is sometimes spelt C. levigata, but the original orthography is C. lævigata.
Description
It is a large shrub or small tree growing to 8 m (26 ft) or rarely to 12 m (39 ft) tall, with a dense crown. The leaves are 2–6 cm (0.79–2.4 in) long and 2–5 cm (0.79–2.0 in) broad, with two or three shallow, forward-pointing lobes on each side of the leaf. The hermaphrodite flowers are produced in corymbs of 6 to 12, each flower with five white or pale pink petals and two or sometimes three styles. They are pollinated by insects. The fruit is a dark red pome 6–10 mm (0.2–0.4 in) diameter, slightly broader than long, containing two or three nutlets.
It flowers in May to June (UK) in rather lax clusters. The flowers are usually white, but can be pink. Flowers are up to 2.4 cm in diameter, with 2–3 styles and stigmas and more than 20 stamens.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Crataegus laevigata” as species of plant. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the science & nature register because the source frames it as species of plant. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Datasets, specimens, observations and peer-reviewed methods provide the appropriate test for the technical claims summarized here. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q159553. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Crataegus laevigata” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.