Crataegus coleae
|
Cole’s hawthorn is named after Emma Cole, high school botany teacher, Kent Scientific Institute herbarium curator, and author of Grand Rapids Flora (1901). Cole spent 7 years collecting across the Grand Rapids area via horse and buggy compiling a record of plant species. Fun Fact: While Cole was working on Grand Rapids Flora, she corresponded with C. F. Wheeler and W. J. Beal of the MSU Herbarium! Go Green! Between 1900-1925, 1000 new species of Crataegus were described. Charles Sargent, director of the Arnold Arboretum, named 700 of them, one of which was C. coleae. Sargent named it after Cole as a way to honor her work, as she sent him many specimens. Hawthorns are notoriously difficult to ID on the species level, making C. coleae a hard specimen to find and ID. See how Michigan Flora prefaces its dichotomous key here. According to FNA, C. coleae is likely endemic to Michigan. It’s not as well-documented as the other species in this series because it is uncommon and tricky to identify. Our most recent specimens of C. coleae are from the 1940s. FNA treats this species as C. xcoleae--this means the species is likely of hybrid origin. While C. coleae hasn’t been studied genetically, there is genetic evidence of hybridization and reticulate evolution between other hawthorn species! See here. Emma Cole was an accomplished botanist and a wonderful teacher! Read more about her in this biography by Julie Stivers and Garrett Crow. |
 A Crataegus coleae specimen from the Michigan State University Herbarium's collection. One of the specimens
used to create Page 4 of Michigan Trees. Emma Cole, teacher, botanist, and author of Grand Rapids Flora. Map of the geographical area covered by Cole in Grand Rapids Flora, made by one of
Emma Cole's students, Homer Skeels. Illustration of C. coleae from Trees and Shrubs:Illustrations of New or Little Known Ligneous Plants, prepared from material at the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, and edited by Charles Sprague Sargent.  A distribution map of Crataegus coleae across Michigan, via Michigan Flora. |