# Three-flower Hawthorn (Crataegus triflora)

> A rare southern hawthorn with white flowers as big as a wild rose's, often three to a cluster in spring, and round red haws with juicy orange flesh.

Also called three-flowered hawthorn, threeflower hawthorn. Category: Nut & Fruit Trees. Grown from seed by Blue Whale Trees. Web version: https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/three-flower-hawthorn/

![Three-flower hawthorn (Crataegus triflora) painted branches with white flowers and round red haws](https://bluewhaletrees.com/img/plants/three-flower-hawthorn-h1610-800.jpg)
*Photo: Marian Ellis Rowan, Public domain · [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AA_guide_to_the_trees_%28Plate_LV%29_%288435932960%29.jpg)*

## Facts

- Type: Shrub
- Mature height: 3 to 20 ft
- USDA hardiness zones: 7 to 8
- Grows wild in: Rich moist slopes, rocky ground, old fields and edges
- Native range: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee
- Sun: Part, Full
- Soil moisture: Average
- Growth rate: Medium
- Traits: Rare, Showy flowers, Wildlife value, Bears young
- Sold as: Saplings, Seed

Heights and zones are typical ranges for the species in cultivation; local conditions and seed source shift them.

## Availability

Not yet priced online. Ask at captain@bluewhaletrees.com or leave an email on the web page to be told when it is listed.

## Notes

Three-flower hawthorn is a rare thorny shrub of the Deep South, with Alabama at the center of its range and scattered stands in Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas. Its flowers, the size of a wild rose's, are among the showiest of any hawthorn. About 1,000 plants are thought to remain in the wild, most in stands of fewer than 50. NatureServe ranks it imperiled, and Georgia lists it as threatened. Clearing, the loss of fire and grazing, and cedar-apple rust are its main threats. Set it at a woodland edge or in a native garden, where its big spring flowers can be seen up close.

## Size, growth and what to expect

No source rates its growth, so our growth estimator treats it as a medium grower, like most of our hawthorns, about a foot and a half a year. It is a shrub with one to several stems, usually 3 to 6 feet tall in the wild and up to 20. Seedlings can flower at four years, when they stand about 3 feet tall.

White flowers about an inch across, with many yellow stamens, open from late April into early May, and in Louisiana as early as March. They come in clusters of two to seven, most often three, and the middle one opens first. The fruit is a round red haw about half an inch across, ripe from September into November, with juicy orange flesh. Birds eat it and spread the seed.

Its home is moist wooded ravines and slopes over limestone, open woods on limy clay, and the edges of prairies. In Louisiana it grows with Durand oak, parsley hawthorn, cockspur hawthorn and fragrant sumac. It crosses with Ashe's hawthorn and other hawthorns where they meet.

## How to grow Three-flower Hawthorn

Three-flower hawthorn grows best in light shade, or in full sun where the soil stays moist, because strong sun with drought stresses it badly. Give it a soil over limestone or a limy clay that is moist but never wet. Its thorns grow up to 2 inches long and are often branched, so keep it back from paths. Set plants 10 feet apart, and keep each one 10 feet from a wall. It is small enough to grow within 15 feet of overhead wires.

Saplings ship bare-root or potted. Plant them dormant, from leaf fall until bud swell, in a hole wider than the roots and no deeper. Set the crown at the soil line, put the native soil back in, and keep the mulch clear of the stems. Clean the seed from the ripe fruit, and sow it outdoors in fall. It sprouts best after a winter in the cold ground.

Water weekly through the first summer, and in dry spells for the next two. Deer browse hawthorn leaves and twigs and rabbits gnaw young bark, so cage young plants for their first three years. Its roots sprout again after it is cut back or burned, as long as the sprouts get light.

Most three-flower hawthorns carry three or four sets of chromosomes, and hawthorns like them usually set seed with their own pollen, so one plant can bear alone. Bees and beetles visit the flowers. Like other hawthorns it can suffer from fungal and bacterial diseases and insect pests. Cedar-apple rust, a fungus that spends part of its life on eastern redcedar, is its main disease, so keep it away from redcedars.

## Sources

- [Flora of North America, vol. 9: Crataegus triflora, Phipps](http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=1&taxon_id=250100181)
- [Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Georgia Biodiversity Portal: Crataegus triflora species account, Chafin 2007, updated 2020](https://georgiabiodiversity.org/portal/profile?group=plants&es_id=21985)
- [NatureServe Explorer: Crataegus triflora](https://explorer.natureserve.org/Taxon/ELEMENT_GLOBAL.2.135466/Crataegus_triflora)
- [Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, Rare Plants of Louisiana: Crataegus triflora, three-flowered hawthorn](http://www.wlf.louisiana.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/fact_sheet_plant/31969-Crataegus%20triflora/crataegus_triflora.pdf)
- [USDA Forest Service, Woody Plant Seed Manual (2008), Crataegus chapter, Lasseigne and Blazich](https://www.fs.usda.gov/nsl/Wpsm/Crataegus.pdf)
- [Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center: Crataegus triflora](https://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=CRTR2)
- [Alabama Natural Heritage Program: Tracking List, November 2023](https://cosam.auburn.edu/biology/alnhp/_assets/2023_trackinglist.pdf)
- [Mississippi Natural Heritage Program: Special Plants Tracking List 2018](https://www.mdwfp.com/sites/default/files/2024-03/special-plant-tracking-list-2018.pdf)
- [Louisiana Natural Heritage Program: Rare, Threatened and Endangered Plants tracking list 2022](https://www.wlf.louisiana.gov/assets/Conservation/Protecting_Wildlife_Diversity/Files/rare_plants_tracking_list_2022.pdf)
- [Missouri Department of Conservation Field Guide: Hawthorns](https://mdc.mo.gov/discover-nature/field-guide/hawthorns)
- [Talent and Dickinson 2005, Canadian Journal of Botany 83: 1268-1304](https://doi.org/10.1139/b05-088)
- [Dickinson and Phipps 1986, American Journal of Botany 73: 116-130](https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1537-2197.1986.tb09687.x)
- [Vaskova and Kolarcik 2019, Forests 10: 1059](https://doi.org/10.3390/f10121059)
- [Lo 2008, Global and fine scale molecular studies of polyploid evolution in Crataegus L. (Rosaceae), PhD thesis, University of Toronto, appendix 4](https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/handle/1807/16757)

## Read before planting

- [Ten planting mistakes that quietly kill trees](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/ten-planting-mistakes/index.html.md)
- [Transplanting young trees: timing, water and protection](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/transplanting-young-trees/index.html.md)
- [Protecting young trees from voles, rabbits, deer and squirrels](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/protecting-trees-from-animals/index.html.md)
- [The habitat around a tree is part of the tree](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/habitat-around-a-tree/index.html.md)
- [Invasive vines and shrubs are what is killing your woods](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/invasive-vines-and-shrubs/index.html.md)
- [Native trees and shrubs for butterflies and moths: host plants first, nectar second](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/native-trees-for-butterflies-and-moths/index.html.md)

## Related

- [Planting-site check](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/site-check/index.html.md): for a thrive, struggle or fail verdict on Three-flower Hawthorn, add ?species=three-flower-hawthorn with zone (2 to 10), sun (full, part, shade) and moisture (dry, average, wet) to that address, for example ?species=three-flower-hawthorn&zone=7&sun=part&moisture=average.
- [Companion species for Three-flower Hawthorn](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/companions/index.html.md?species=three-flower-hawthorn): the natives that share its ground and the plants that pair with it in a yard.
- [Growth estimator](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/growth/index.html.md): how the height and trunk projections are made; the estimate itself runs in the browser at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/growth/#species=three-flower-hawthorn
- [Seed sowing planner](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/sowing/index.html.md): how Three-flower Hawthorn is sown, in the chart for every species (treatment, cold days, depth, timing); the dated plan runs in the browser at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/sowing/#species=three-flower-hawthorn
- [Pollination planner](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/pollination/index.html.md): what Three-flower Hawthorn needs for a crop and how many to plant, in the table for every species; the planner runs in the browser at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/pollination/#plants=three-flower-hawthorn:1
- [Bloom and fruit calendar](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/calendar/index.html.md): the months Three-flower Hawthorn flowers and fruits, in the grid for every species.