Crataegus Curiosities

Crataegus is a widespread genus that is well characterized over some of its range, but not very well studied in the Southeastern United States. It is also notoriously confusing to do taxonomic work in this genus and has even facilitated the creation of a concept called ‘The Crataegus Problem’. Though researchers tend to avoid the subject, we intend to tackle Crataegus taxonomy because of the many rare species that are important to the Southeastern ecology. Additionally, we plan to work on amassing larger ex-situ and living reference collections to conserve genetic variation and living specimens to study.