Identification Features

• Bark: Grey-brown, sometimes with a hint of orange. Starting smooth in young trees, becoming scaly and heavily fissured with vertical grooves, which can be spiralled around trunk. Can look a bit shaggy. 
• Twigs: Purple-red, hairless, fine, stiff. Side-shoots often terminate with a sharp spine.
• Buds: Very small (2-2.5mm), egg-shaped, pointed with brown scales

Description/General Character:
Hedgerow shrub or small tree. Can be multi-stemmed or with single trunk. Spreading in nature and very twiggy with densely packed branches and many sharp spines on branches, twigs and trunks (not just bud-bearing side-shoots).

Range:
Throughout Europe to western Asia (Afghanistan).

Habitat:
Woods and hedgerows, heaths and reclaimed waste ground. Widely planted as a stock fence. An abundant species. Particularly likes chalk/limestone.

Other Observations:
Hybridises readily with other Crataegus species.