Small deeply cut lobed leaves that open before the white blossom, on a thorny hedgerow shrub
Hawthorn. Blackthorn flowers on bare twigs before its leaves — the classic discrimination.
Nature · Trees
Hawthorn
Deciduous · to 15 m · the May tree
Crataegus monogyna — Rosaceae
The commonest hedgerow shrub in Britain, planted in millions during the parliamentary enclosures, the hawthorn is also the May tree whose white blossom marks the turn of spring. Its leaves come before its flowers, which is the simplest way to separate it from blackthorn. Its red fruits are haws, and its folklore is dense with both luck and ill luck.
How to know it
How to spot them
- ▸Small deeply lobed leaves, cut more than halfway to the midrib, appearing before the flowers
- ▸White (sometimes pink) blossom in dense flat clusters in May, faintly heavy-scented
- ▸Deep red oval haws, each with a single stone
- ▸Thorns are short and grow from the shoots themselves; twigs brown and often zigzag
- ▸Bark brown-grey with close vertical fissures and knobbly bosses
How to know it
Millions were planted to make the field boundaries of the parliamentary enclosures
Hawthorn — hence the name quickthorn or quickset for hedging plants.
Its fruit is a deep red oval with a single stone, and its specific epithet records that one style
Hawthorn — Crataegus monogyna, the haw. Midland hawthorn has two or three styles and stones.
Unlucky to bring the blossom indoors, yet the tree of the Glastonbury legend and of the Tudor badge after Bosworth
Hawthorn. Henry VII took the crown-in-a-hawthorn-bush as a badge.
The month in the old calendar was named for its blossom, and 'ne'er cast a clout' until it appears
Hawthorn — the May tree.
Its thorns grow from the shoots themselves, so the twigs end in a bud, not a spine
Hawthorn. In blackthorn the side shoots themselves harden into spines.
Quick-fire facts
- •Crataegus monogyna — monogyna means 'one style', hence one stone in each haw
- •Midland hawthorn (Crataegus laevigata) has shallower leaf lobes and two or three styles and stones
- •Known as the May tree; the month and the blossom share a name, and bringing the flowers indoors is traditionally unlucky
- •Planted in enormous quantity for the hedges of the 18th- and 19th-century parliamentary enclosures; quickthorn and quickset are hedging names
- •The Glastonbury Thorn, said to have sprouted from Joseph of Arimathea's staff, is a hawthorn that flowers around Christmas
- •After Bosworth in 1485 Henry VII adopted a crown in a hawthorn bush as a badge, alluding to Richard III's crown found in a thorn bush
- •The flowers contain trimethylamine, the smell of decay, which draws the flies that pollinate them
- •Haws feed thrushes, redwings and fieldfares; the shrub supports several hundred insect species
- •Hawthorn is a traditional heart remedy, and 'bread and cheese' was the country name for the young leaves
Drill it — 8 cards
1 / 8new card
Sources
- Woodland Trust — Hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna)