May blossom

 

It's been a fantastic year for Hawthorn blossom.

Haws

Hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna) appears to be having a good year so far, trees covered in blossom at Beltane are now heavy with burgeoning haws as the Solstice approaches.

Beltane

 

Bels' fire warms the soil, and in the greenwood the Goddess and the Green Man are united; through that union fertility and abundance again return to the land. Flora, Ēostre, Rana Niejta, Brigid, Ashanti, Freya, Dilga, Sopdet, Persephone, she is known in every corner of the world, by many names, hail and well met the Goddess of Spring. Now's the time to plant seeds literal and figurative. Beltane blessings. /|\

Haws

 

It is a real bumper year for Haws, the forests' Hawthorns (Crataegus monogyna) are putting on quite the show. If you'd ever considered collecting haws for making jams and jellies or maybe for their medicinal qualities making syrups, teas and tinctures then this would appear to be a good year. I think I may have made Haw wine once? You can eat the fleshy ones straight off the bough too, though try and spit the seeds out, they're a bit cyanide-y. That aside the berries are bloody good for you.

Bumper haws

It's a bumper season for haws; definitely a success in what's been a thin year for many wild fruits and nuts. I've not seen a Hawthorn that hasn't been laden with pillar box red berries. Tree lore says, that a good crop of haws means a hard winter to come, they'll provide the forest's birds with a welcome meal then.

Camel Green Blossom

We usually see Hawthorn as a hedgerow shrub, regularly controlled and contained by the hedge layer and flail. Or as a manicured and tamed garden feature, like yesterday's Crimson Hawthorn. Out here in the forest though they've no such constraints, and make the most of their freedom, filling the understory with clusters of white flowers, reaching their blooms towards the sky.  You notice that through the year everything has it's moment to shine in the forest. Now it's the Hawthorn's time.

Crimson Hawthorn

We saw this stunning Crimson Hawthorn (Crataegus laevigata) whilst out walking this morning, what a beauty. I stood for a while taking it all in, it's a good sized shrub tree and was a real riot of colour. 

The May Queen wakes

The May Queen wakes.

Bullace

Wandering along Dark Lane this morning with Geoff I was struck by how laden with fruit the hedgerow shrubs are, Sloe, Haw, Hazel, Oak, all are weighed down with ripening produce.  A nice surprise was to find a few good sized Bullace (Prunus insititia) shrubs also well laden with fruits. It got me thinking, just imagine if as a society we embarked on a massive program of hedge laying, of creating miles of hedges. Imagine the quantities of fruits and nuts we could harvest in a good year, not to mention the creation of valuable wildlife habitats and in light of the climate crisis, the carbon sinks we'd establish. If only we thought outside of our self constructed box, nature offers simple solutions to humanities complex problems.

Hawthorns

The Hawthorns are in full bloom throughout the forests woodland, whichever direction you look their clean white blossom shines. It's at this time of the year that you realize just how big a part of the forests matrix, and how abundant, they are. 

May Blossom

Right on cue the forest's queens of May come into bloom.

Berry good

If you're of the school of thought or tradition that says, berries (sloe, hip, haw and so forth) should be, or are best, picked after the first proper frost, then now's your chance.  Frost still clings in the shadows this morning, puddles have opaque crusts and the shrubs are laden with useful fruits. Come fill your boots!

Mother Hawthorn

Mother Hawthorn, beloved of the Fay, and revered by man, a treasured repository of folklore. This venerable tree could was easily seed from quite a ways off, its red flush of fecundity shining in contrast to the forest's fading glories. So many berries, man. It's been a bumper year for the Hawthorn, blossom covered in Spring and now laden with fruits, most good sized fruits too, a successful year. And, this Hawthorn is definitely the most striking and one of the most successful I've seen, so far.

May

The delicate beauty and intricacy of nature never ceases to create wonder. It doesn't matter how many times you see stuff in nature (Hawthorn blossom in this case), it's always magical as if you're seeing it again for the first time. Thanks nature.

May blossom Beltaine

Some Druids and Pagans celebrate Beltaine when the first blossoms appear on their local trees rather than the set date of May first.  Using the thorn flowering as the measure, then, Beltaine has arrived in these parts.

Hawthorn blooms

The Common Hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna) is one of our most beautiful shrubs and also a valued plant; it's blossom, synonymous with the arrival of the May Queen, signifies the beginning of the growing season and nature fecundity; it's flowers, it's leafs, both edible when young; later it's berries are edible too, used to make jams, jellies, wines and syrups as well as that it's known to contain beneficial medical constituents and a is valued wood for small woodworking projects. 

Leaf before the flower

The Hawthorns are starting to bud; unlike the Blackthorn which produces flowers before it produces leaves, the Hawthorn shows its leaves first. An easy way to distinguish the two similar, in form and habitat, thorny shrubs. With Beltain and May just around the corner, these buds are forming with perfect timing; well they would, wouldn't they, after all Hawthorn is the May blossom, flower of the May queen.