Crataegus pubescens
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| Crataegus pubescens | ||||||||||||||||
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| Crataegus pubescens Loudon |
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C. stipulacea |
Crataegus pubescens, known as Mexican Hawthorn or Tejocote, is a species of hawthorn native to Mexico. It is a large shrub or small tree growing to 5-10 m tall, with a dense crown. The leaves are semi-evergreen, oval to diamond-shaped, 4-8 cm long, with a serrated margin. The flowers are off-white, 2 cm diameter. The fruit is a globose to oblong orange-red pome 2 cm long and 1.5 cm diameter, ripening in late winter only shortly before the flowers of the following year.
The fruit is eaten in Mexico cooked, raw, or canned. It resembles a crabapple, but it has three or sometimes more brown hard seeds in the center. It is also a main ingredient used in ponche, the traditional Mexican hot fruit punch that is served at Christmas time and on New Year's Eve, as well as being used on Day of the Dead, where the fruit as well as candy prepared from it are used as offerings to the dead, and rosaries made of tejocote fruit are part of altar decorations. The mixture of tejocote paste, sugar, and chili powder produces a popular Mexican candy called rielitos, because it resembles a tiny train rail. Rielitos are manufactured by several brands.
Due to its high pectin content, the fruit is also industrially processed to extract pectin, which has uses in the food, cosmetic, pharmaceutical, textile and metal industries.
Other uses include food for livestock (for which the leaves and fruits are used) and traditional medicinal uses; a Mexican hawthorn root infusion is used as a diuretic and as a remedy for diarrhea, and fruit-based preparations are a remedy for coughing and several heart conditions.
The Mexican hawthorn tree's wood is hard and compact, it has uses for firewood as well as for building tool handles. [1]
