Midland Hawthorn

Name: Midland Hawthorn

Scientific name: Crataegus laevigata

Category: Trees and bushes

Nature Stars: 50

What are nature stars?

About: A shrub of hedgerows and woodland edges. Thorny, with pinky-white flowers during May and masses of red fruits ('haws') during the winter.

How to identify: Told from the much more frequent Common Hawthorn by the more shallowly lobed leaves and having two seeds in each fruit. More frequently found in woodland.

Where: Central and Southern England.

Fantastic fact: It is bad luck to cut hawthorn trees, except when they are in flower.

Photograph credit: Josh Jackson