Name That Shrub! (Please!)

[paghat]

This shrub has been in the yard forever & I've never known what species it is:

would seem to be some kind of Crataegus species or Hawthorn, but there are other rose-family trees, even some Prunus, which get just as thorny, & I've just never been certain. Here's another shot of it showing the leaves better: comparing it to a common Russian hawthorn the differences are many:

1) It has smaller-than-average white flowers in May, & they are inconspicuous compared to similar blooms of Russian hawthorns, chokeberry, &c. 2) It has regular-looking hawberries except slightly compressed rather than round. 3) It has elongated leaves rather than ferny or lobed as most hawthorns.

Other traits:

1) The thorns are a good two inches long & sharper than the dickens 2) It is an old shrub but only about twelve or fifteen feet tall, so not something that ever becomes a tree. 3) This one has a vase-shaped multi-trunked

-paggers

[brianflay]

[brianflay]

[Cereoid-UR12-]

That's three strikes and you're out, Brainfly!!!

there

[Garrapata]

How about Pyracantha?

[paghat]

Well, although Brian's newsreader program has obviously gone haywire for posting, I got an email from him identifying it as a pyracantha, which now that I'm told seems totally amazingly obvious, but in the years I've owned this house & have been wondering what it was, that never occurred to me, I was really stuck on it being some oddball kind of hawthorn. So thanks to Brian.

-paghat

[Janet Baraclough]

The second pic does look more like pyracantha, but the first looks to me like crataegus prunifolia, or c. crus gallii, both of which have the vase shape that you mention, and long thorns. C prunifolia has glorious autumn colour on the leaves if that's any help.

Janet.

[paghat]

Brian thought it was Pyracantha atlantoides, which isn't discussed in any book of mine, nor many places on the web either; but looking at a shitload of images from a google image search, it seems likely to be the most common of the firethorns, P. conccinea. I really thought it was some odd crataegus, but it's something much more common than that. I forgot to mention it was evergreen or no doubt you'd've been more certain. I think I never recognized it because it never got really LOADED with berries the way I think of pyracantha. When it was planted probably decades ago it probably had plenty of sun, but a huge holly tree & a douglas fir shades it nowadays, so it fruits mainly near the top or wherever it can reach out into the sunlight.

-paggers