Botany Photo of the Day

I think that's a silhouette of me in the left-most pome.

In Britain, the fruit don't ripen until March-April, making this a very reliable tree for attracting Waxwings on spring migration when there's no other fruit left anywhere else for them

Crataegus x grignonensis - Z5 - RHS Index of Garden Plants, Griffiths

Jacobson, NORTH AMERICAN LANDSCAPE TREES (Ten Speed, 1996) says parentage unknown. Did somebody do some DNA work since then? He also notes fruits are "good to eat", may persist into July. Doubtless he has tasted them.

Bean gives it as a hybrid of C. stipulacea (syn. C. pubescens f. stipulacea) but with the other parent unknown / not stated

Bean predates Jacobson, who wrote "A hybrid of mysterious origin. It might have been in cultivation as early as 1840. Usually authors assert that it is a C. crus-galli x C. mexicana hybrid first noticed ca. 1873 at Grignon, France (G. Krussmann says Frankfurt, Germany). Its name was published in 1890."

Under the name heading Jacobson presents its parentage as (C. mexicana x C. ?monogyna?).

Here is the web reference I used (Canadian version of the Genetic Resource Information Network (GRIN-CA)). I've updated the entry to say purported.

They look like teeny tiny apples, are they related to apples? I've heard apple seeds can be poisonous, cyanide in them in minute quantities or some poison.

Tori, yes - they are closely related to apples, and what you suggest re: poisons is the likely reason for warning against ingestion of the seeds.

The fruits are fabulous but difficult to pick in quantity due to the huge and sharp spines or thorns. The seeds are so hard that probably they cannot be chewed anyway. You just spit them out and spread the shrub thereby. Odds are that they are indigestible and would pass through a healthy bowel anyway. There is a rumour also that hawthorn fruits are cardiotonic.
Other than wild berries blue- rasp- black- and wild cherry hawthorne is probably the best tastiest healthiest wild fruit or berry available.