A CONTRADICTION IN TERMS

THORNLESS HAWTHORN ON FIRST AND WILSON

...DITTO ON 11TH AND OLD MILITARY

"THORNAPPLES" 

Sunday, 9:00 AM.  48 degrees F, wind WSW, light at present.  The sky is partly cloudy with high white clouds, and significant storm clouds on the eastern horizon which won't be much of a threat today.  The humidity is 8i0% and the barometer is way up, at 30.32".
   Thorn apple trees, i.e. hawthorns, are so named because they are wickedly thorny.  So thorny that as young man digging trees in the Milwaukee County Park Commission Nursery I hated the whole Cragtaegus genus, and particularly the aptly named cock-spur hawthorn, Crataegus crus-galli.  A session of digging large cockspur hawthorn trees could leave one looking like he had been in a fight with a bobcat.
   That said, the hawthorns have a lot to recommend them to the landscape; most are native to North America, they are tough, drought resistant and reasonably free of pests and diseases.  They bear beautiful white or sometimes pink or even red blossoms in great abundance in late spring, and their foliage is attractive with good fall color, and the 'thorn apples" are very decorative and valuable wildlife food.  But those darn thorns!
   This story does have a happy ending, because  the thorns have been bred out of some varieties, the fierce cockspur hawthorn now being available in the variety inermis (thornless). Admittedly, a thornless thorn apple is something of a contradiction in terms, but by-and-large a welcome one. We have a few as Bayfield street trees, those pictured being on First and Wilson, near the Blackhawk marina, and on 11th and Old Military.  This variety, as do most hawthorns, bears abundant fruit which is usually eaten by birds after the first frost softens them up.
   Hawthorns, particularly the thornless varieties, make excellent small (under twenty feet in hight at maturity) street and park trees, their only drawback being that they can grow too wide for a narrow boulevard site.
   As dangerous and unappealing as hawthorn thorns can be, in nature they serve a valuable purpose, providing safe nesting sites for small birds, the thorns giving them much protection from predators.