Fire-berry hawthorn

Crataegus chrysocarpa, the fire-berry or goldenberry hawthorn, is a thorny deciduous shrub or small tree of the rose family (Rosaceae), generally 2–6 m tall, native to much of the continental United States and Canada from the eastern provinces and Great Lakes west across the Rockies into New Mexico and Utah. Branches are armed with stout, slightly curved thorns; the simple alternate leaves are ovate to obovate with sharply serrated and often shallowly lobed margins. Flat corymbs of small white five-petalled flowers appear in late spring, followed by globose pomes that begin gold-yellow (the source of the epithet chrysocarpa) and ripen to red, occasionally to deep claret or nearly black in some forms. Three varieties are recognised — var. chrysocarpa, var. piperi, and var. vernonensis — differing in pubescence and leaf shape. Listed as Least Concern by the IUCN.