Black Hawthorn

Crataegus douglasii is a compact erect bushy shrub growing to 8–9 metres (26–30 feet) tall with a trunk of up to 10 centimetres (4 inches) thick. It is covered in fan-shaped green leaves about 2.5–5 cm (1–2 in) long with teeth along the distal margin. Thorns along the branches are 1–2.5 cm long. White flowers with greenish centers grow in bunches at the ends of each thin branch. The fruit is a blackish pome up to about 1 cm across, containing 3–5 rocklike seeds.

The thorny shrub is native to northern and western North America, most abundantly in the Pacific Northwest. It grows in varied habitats from forest to scrubland, including moist open places, forest edges, thickets, shorelines, streamside areas, roadsides and coastal bluffs at low to middle elevations.

The foliage is browsed by cattle and sheep. Various birds, including quail, the Hungarian partridge, and ring-necked pheasant feed on the berries, as do bears and other animals. Magpies nest in the branches. The species is a larval host to the gray hairstreak, mourning cloak, pale tiger swallowtail, and western tiger swallowtail.

The edible fruits were a good food source for Native American peoples such as the Cheyenne and Nlaka'pamux. The Syilx/Okanagan use the ripening of the black hawthorn as an indicator that, in the highlands, black mountain huckleberries are ripening, too.