Fanleaf hawthorn

Photo: Staff SDGO — CC BY 3.0 · source

Survives zone 4 through 6

Harvest calendar

Best planted in early spring after your last frost, or in fall before the ground freezes, depending on your climate.

Named for its broad, symmetrical, fan-shaped leaves. Fruit is sweet but soft and mealy rather than firm — a middling dessert hawthorn, better cooked than eaten out of hand.

Hardiness

Zone 4–6

Habit

Tree

Edible part

Fruit

Ripens

Sept–Oct

Mature size

Small tree to 6 m (20 ft)

Light

Full sun to part shade

Soil pH

5.5–8.0 (mildly acid to alkaline) — unusually tolerant, takes very alkaline soil

Environment

Temperate

Native range

Northeastern North America — Maine to Quebec and Michigan, concentrated in Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont.

Status

Wild

Years to fruit

5–8 yrs from seed; 3 yrs if grafted

Growth speed

Medium

Spacing

450 cm (177 in) apart — about 20 m² (218 sq ft) per plant

Leaf shape

Broad, symmetrical, triangular to fan-shaped, 4–6 cm long by 2–5 cm wide, lobed or toothed margins

Root system

A deep, strong taproot with wiry laterals, which is what makes hawthorn so wind-firm, so drought-tolerant on thin chalk, and so difficult to move once it is more than a few years old. Plant it small and leave it where it is.

Fruit description

Red, fleshy, roughly spherical fruit; sweet but soft and mealy

Propagation

Seed, sown fresh in autumn or given 3 months warm followed by 3 months cold stratification; grafted trees fruit by their third year, seedlings take 5–8 years.

Pollination

Pollinated by midges, drawn by the flowers' faintly fetid, decaying-fish scent when they open — unusual among the fruiting shrubs here, most of which are bee-pollinated.

The edible parts listed above are a starting point, not a field guide. Identify a plant with certainty — ideally against a local authority — before eating any part of it, and read the full disclaimer. Spotted something wrong? Report it.