Protologue Description: Crataegus blanchardi, n. sp. Leaves ovate, short-pointed and acuminate at the apex, abruptly or gradually narrowed and cuneate at the entire base, finely often doubly serrate above, with straight glandular teeth, and divided into 4 or 5 pairs of narrow acuminate lateral lobes, when they unfold bronze color, glandular at the base, and covered with long white hairs more abundant on the upper than on the lower surface, nearly half grown when the flowers first open about the 20th of May and then thin, yellow-green above and paler and sparingly villose below and along the midribs and veins, and at maturity subcoriaceous, dark green and lustrous on the upper and pale yellow-green and almost glabrous on the lower surface, 4.5-6 cm. long and 4.5-5 cm. wide with stout yellow midribs and slender veins arching obliquely to the points of the lobes; petioles slender, wing-margined at the apex, slightly grooved at first villose, becoming glabrous, and glandular, fading brown, caduceus; leaves on vigorous shots rounded or truncate at the base, coarsely serrate, deeply lobed, 6-7 cm. long and wide, with stout broadly winged petioles glandular through the season.
Flowers 1.5-1.7 cm. in diameter, on long stout densely pedicels, in thick-branched hairy corymbs, with oblong to linear obovate glandular bracts and bractlets often persistent until the flowers open; calyx-tube broadly obconic, covered with long matted pale hairs and glabrous above, the lobes gradually narrowed from wide base, short, acuminate, glandular-serrate, near the middle, glabrous on the outer, slightly villose on the inner surface, reflexed after anthesis; stamens 20; anthers pale pink, styles 3-5, surrounded at the base by a narrow ring of pale hairs. Fruit ripening at the end of September, on thick erect slightly villose pedicels, in few often 3-6-fruited clusters, short-oblong, full and rounded at the ends, dark cherry red, lustrous, marked by small pale dots; calyx little enlarged, with a wide shallow cavity, and spreading and appressed serrate lobes villose on the upper side and often deciduous from the ripe fruit; flesh thick, yellow, soft and pulpy; nutlets 3-5, rounded at the base, acute at the apex, ridged on the back, usually with a narrow slightly grooved ridge, or when only 3 full and rounded at the ends, with a broad deeply grooved ridge, 6-7 mm. long and about 4 mm. wide.
A shrub 3-4 m. high, with numerous stems spreading into thickets, and slender nearly straight branchlets marked by pale lenticels, dark orange-green when they first appear, light chestnut-brown and lustrous in their first winter, lighter-colored in their second season, and light gray-brown the following year, and armed with many stout slightly curved bright chestnut-brown shining and ultimately dark gray-brown spines 4-5 cm. long.
Hillsides, Deerfield River Valley, Windham County, Vermont; common. Wilmington and Whitington, W.H. Blanchard (no. 7), August 1902, W.W. Eggleston (nos. 3451, 3452 type! And nos. 3446, 3449, 3453), May and September 1903.
Name derivation: After William Henry Blanchard.