When is a Hawthorn not a Hawthorn?

Last weekend, I paid a visit to a park I used to play in as a child. I found a tree that struck me as being, at second glance, quite odd. I'm hoping someone can explain what's going on here......

Here's the trunk that first attracted my attention......


Nice enough, but much better when you get closer......


Definitely, unmistakeably and irrefutably a Hawthorn, yes?
If you're not convinced, the trunk was festooned with lots of these little clumps of twigs.....


Soooo......how come the rest of the tree, and I mean the whole canopy, looked like this.....?


Weird, eh?
Answers on a postcard, to arrive no later than next Friday.

Hawthorn seedlings growing in the compost in the trunk fissures perhaps? Hawthorns often have thorns growing from the main trunks; of which I don't see any in the pictures. So this leads me to believe that these are renegade seedlings left by birds.
Beautiful tree by the way!
Todd

Todd Ellis wrote:Hawthorn seedlings growing in the compost in the trunk fissures perhaps? Hawthorns often have thorns growing from the main trunks; of which I don't see any in the pictures. So this leads me to believe that these are renegade seedlings left by birds.
Beautiful tree by the way!
Todd

Yes. I saw it happening here from huge acacia trees. but eventually the seedlings died, unless it is a parasitic tree specie like ficus which in turns kill the host tree.

regards,
jun

Hi Harleyrider

It could be a Crataegus crus-galli, grafted on a more ordinary Crataegus.

Kind regards Yvonne

Hi Steve, Hawthorn is used as a stock for grafting many ornamental and fruit trees eg the fruit Medlar.

Regards Chris

see next post

Yvonne Graubaek wrote:Hi Harleyrider

It could be a Crataegus crus-galli, grafted on a more ordinary Crataegus.

Kind regards Yvonne

Hi Steve, Hawthorn is used as a stock for grafting many ornamental and fruit trees eg the fruit Medlar.

Regards Chris

Thats it, next question Steve!

Peter

Thanks for all your suggestions, folks. On reflection, I tend to agree with Chris, although why someone chose to spoil a perfectly good Hawthorn by grafting some oddball onto it is beyond me.

As for the small clumps of Hawthorn branches groing on the trunk, perhaps I should have said that I checked to see if they were actually attached or were, as some of you suggested, opportunistic seedlings. They were indeed growing from the trunk, and carried some cunningly hidden (and not to mention bloody sharp!) thorns within their foliage.