Hawthorn : Crataegus oxyacantha, Crataegus monogyna and related species

Abstract

Crataegus species are deciduous spring flowering shrubs, belonging to the Rosaceae family (Chang and Zuo, 2002). Etymologically, Crataegus is a derivative of the Greek word ‘kratos’ meaning strength, referring either to the hardness of the woody bark (Verma et al., 2007) or to its strong medicinal virtues. The nomenclature within the Crataegus genus is not clear. This is attributed to the high degree of hybridisation occurring among different species. The shrub has been extensively used for hedging hence the old English name ‘hawe’ referring to a space confined by a hedge (Kumar et al., 2012). Hawthorn is mainly distributed in North America, Europe and the Himalayas. Hawthorn species are found in several herbal supplements and are renowned for their chemopreventive properties (Kennedy 2005; Wu et al., 2011).