Hawthorn

Name:
The name 'Hawthorn'  comes from the Anglo-Saksen 'Hagathorn'. Haga means hedge.
The scientific name 'Crataegus' comes from the Greek 'kratos' meaning 'strong', which refers to the hardness of the wood. Monogyna means 'one-pistil! 
Some of its many common names are: Bread and Cheese Tree, Hagthorn, Haw, May, Mayblossom, Mayflower, Maythorn, Maybush, Whitethorn, Quickset, Quickthorn, etc.

Characteristics:
Mitchell tells us that the thorns are "proliferating in North America (where there are between 300 and 1000 species according to choice), and 90 in Europe and Asia. Nearly all unashamed shrubs, but our native thorns aspire to tree form in places and some small tree-species are planted quite widely. (Alan Mitchell "A Fieldguide to the Trees of Britain and Northern Europe" (Collins 1974).
In hedges Hawthorn is familiar as a dense thorny shrub, but if it is allowed to grow freely it will form a lovely rounded bushy topped tree up to 8-12 meters high. It can grow higher than that: A 700 year old tree in Norfolk and the Hawthorn pollards in Hatfield Forest and Hall Place in Kent are at least 15 meters, but this is rare. The trunk does not usually grow to a huge size, 3 to 4 ft diameter at the most, but it makes up for it by twisted and gnarled.
The young trees have a smooth light grey bark, which turns into a grey to pinkish brown bark with dark longitudal fissures on older ones and can become really rugged on venerable trees. This gives rise to the peculiar situation that many of the branches emerging from the trunk, which still are smooth pale grey look totally different, as if they were another species grafted unto it!. If you examine these branches, or a young trunk carefully, you find that the diameter isn't perfectly round, but slightly flattened on two sides. Small brown buds are arranged spirally along the twigs. The thorns are actually spine-tipped side branches and can be of varying length.
The leaves are a bright dark glossy green on top and attached alternately. They are variable in shape, with either 3, 5 or 7 lobes. On the Common Hawthorn the lobes reach more than halfway to the midrib and are longer than they are wide (length from 1.5 to 3.5 cm) with tuft or hairs in vein-angles on the underside of the leaf. The leaves of the Midland Hawthorn are more rounded, wider than long (length from 1.5 cm to 5 cm), not nearly so deeply lobed and have tiny teeth all around.
The tree comes early into leaf, about end March/early April, when the fresh green leaf push out the the tiny bud scales  The autumn colours are brown, red and yellow depending on weather conditions, sometimes they just turn a dull brown colour before falling.

Cultivation:
Propagation is usually be seed, which germinates only after two years.
The stock of Hawthorn can be used to graft its own species, but has also been used for close relatives, such as the medlar and pear. The Common Hawthorn is not fussy about soil conditions and will grow in most places.

Wood:
The wood of the Hawthorn is very hard, but the trees are generally too small to be considered as a timber tree. Its heartwood is rusty brown and the outer sapwood pale brown. Many small articles were made of it, such as boxes, combs and tool handles.
An excellent excellent fuel, making the hottest wood-fire known. Hawthorn charcoal was used formerly to melt pig-iron without the aid of a blast. Hedge trimmings were widely used as bundles of faggots to light bread ovens.

Uses:

• Since Ancient times Hawthorn has been used as a hedgeplant. Young Hawthorn grow fast with many thorny branches and side-shoots and will make an excellent stockproof hedge.

• In former days when Chinese, Indian and Ceylon tea were expensive luxuries young Hawthorn leaves were sometimes used as an 'adulterant' for tea.

• Liqueur made with the berries in Brandy (Grieve)

• Food for free: Hawthorn tops pudding

• Levi: "The leafy buds re eaten as a tonic salad. The flowers are also edible, sprinkled on fruit salads, junkets and custards. The fruits are edible and tonic, eaten raw (though rather astringent in the mouth). They make good conserves and fermented make a strong wine."

• The berries are not particularly tasty, nor do they taste unpleasant. They have a fresh fruity mealy taste. They make a good healthy addition to a hedgerow jam.

History and Tree lore

• "Each spring as I round the last bend in the lane leading to our mill, I am reminded of Proust's little path 'buzzing with the fragrance of hawthorn' and I recite to myself that telling phrase which so clearly paints the scene: 'The hedge formed as if it were a succession of chapels that were bedecked with flowers, like a wayside altar.' It is all there, even the sacred character of the hawthorn which can be traced back since the beginning of time. Through the length and breadth of Europe it has always been considered a foremost 'protecting plant'." (Palaiseul)

• "Long before our own era, at the wedding feasts in Athens, each guest carried a sprig of hawthorn, token of happiness and prosperity for the future of the newly married couple." (Palaiseul)

• "In Rome it was the practice for the bridegroom to wave a twig of hawthorn as he led his bride to the nuptial chamber, and sprigs of hawthorn were attached to the cradle of a new-born child to protect him from sickness and evil spells." (Palaiseul).

• "For centuries the torches that lit the nuptial chamber were of hawthorn wood specially kept for this solemn occasion." (Palaiseul)

• "In numerous regions it was a springtime custom to plait crowns of hawthorn and leave them for the fairies or angels who came by night to dance around the fragrant bushes, an who, it was hoped, would show their appreciation by showering their blessings on those who had taken this trouble on their behalf." (Palaiseul).

• "In Burgundy, mothers carry their sick child to a flowering hawthorn, for they believe that their prayers will ascend better to heaven in company with the fragrance of the flowers." (Palaiseul)

• "Lastly, hawthorn is recommended - although this particular usage is less reliable than the above-mentioned (medicinal), owing more to magic than medicine! - for transforming the mood of a husband. Kabyle women invoke its powers, requesting it to 'stop my husband from beating me and change him into a donkey that I may make him carry the straw...." (Palaiseul)

• Irish called it 'The Gentle Bush'

• Old ballads sing of those who have entered the Otherworld by the door of a sacred tree. Thomas the Rhymer, a bard who lived in 13th century Scotland, sat under the famous Eildon tree, and was taken away by the Queen of Elfland. The Eildon tree was a hawthorn, sacred to the faeries as most bards know, including modern poet Kathleen Raine who wrote:

A hundred years I slept beneath a thorn,
Until the tree was root and branches of my thought,
Until white petals blossomed in my crown. (Mara Freeman) 

Hawthorn Medicine:
Both the Common and the Midland Hawthorn have the same medicinal properties. However, since Crataegus laevegata or the Midland Hawthorn is the tree which tends to get used for commercial harvesting, you can read about Hawthorn medicine on the Midland Hawthorn page.

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Traditional  knowledge: The-Tree offers a page where you can read the entry for Hawthorn from "A Modern Herbal" (Mrs. M. Grieve, ed. Mrs. C.F.Leyel) published in 1931. Obviously things have moved on since then, yet this book is still often unsurpassed in its scope and depth of traditional knowledge. The page pops up in a new window. Close it to return to the Tree Gallery.

Note from webmother to  page visitors:
Many of these pages are still bare bones. Whenever time allows, we will continue to add information to the Tree Gallery until all the trees have descriptions of their habitat, characteristics, cultivation, uses and anything else of interest. Email us if you are keen to know more about a particular tree and we will do our best to complete that one next.

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