What are the characteristics and origin of hawthorn?
Hawthorn is native to China and has a long cultivation history. It is a unique fruit tree in China and a rare and precious fruit in the world. At present, there are about 1000 species of hawthorn plants on the earth's surface, but few of them are eaten. There are six kinds of hawthorn in China: hawthorn tree, big hawthorn, monkey hawthorn, Shandong hawthorn, Yunnan hawthorn and wild hawthorn. Among them, hawthorn and its varieties are the most widely cultivated and have the highest edible value. The famous varieties are: red hawthorn produced in Xinglong County, Hebei Province, with bright red pulp, sweet and sour taste. Followed by the Great Venus in Fushan, Shandong Province, the fruit is big and fleshy, with dense meat, pink color and moderate sweetness and sourness. There is also soft-core hawthorn in Liaoning, which is famous for its soft and thin seed coat, small fruit and thick meat, and even seeds can be chewed. In addition, there are yellow fruit, red-billed hawthorn, ginkgo biloba, square fruit hawthorn and bare-billed hawthorn. Hawthorn trees are widely distributed in China, reaching Heilongjiang in the north and Guangxi and Yunnan in the south. Cultivation can be found everywhere, whether in low-altitude valleys or in high mountains and thin lands with an altitude of 1800 meters. Among them, in terms of provinces, Shandong, Hebei, Liaoning, Shanxi, Henan and other provinces have more output, especially Shandong Province, which ranks first in the country.