Hawthorn

Where it grows

Common hawthorn is native to most of Europe, North Africa, and western Asia. It thrives in hedgerows, woodland edges, scrubland, and old pasture across temperate climates, where its tolerance of poor soils, wind, and salt makes it the workhorse hedge plant of the British landscape.

How to recognise it

A small, dense, often gnarled tree armed with sharp 2 to 3 centimetre thorns. The deeply lobed leaves are small and toothed. In May the canopy explodes into clouds of white five-petalled flowers, the famous “May blossom,” followed by clusters of bright crimson haws — small single-seeded pomes — that persist into winter.

Uses

Hawthorn has been the standard hedging plant of enclosed English farmland since the 18th century: planted close, laid horizontally, and beaten back annually to form impenetrable stockproof barriers. The berries are mildly astringent fresh, but go into jellies, hedgerow wines, and traditional cardiovascular remedies still in herbal practice today.

In folklore

The May blossom is a powerful folk symbol of spring across northern Europe, and a lone hawthorn in a field was traditionally left untouched as a “fairy tree” in Ireland, where uprooting one is said to bring bad luck.