All About the Blackthorn

We are have an early spring – in London , where it is always warmer , things that would not normally flower until the end of April are in full bloom . It is most disconcerting .

Out here in the countryside ( I hold out about seventy naut mi outside the metropolis – which may not sound like much to you guys but commend that we are a very small island ) things are still a bit out of kelter . One of the very first plant to blossom in our hedge is the Blackthorn ( genus Prunus spinosa ) which is right now doing its thing with reckless abandon .

I am rather fond of Blackthorn even though it is a bit of an underdog in the grand system of thing . It is not really honorable enough to be a stand alone garden tree but as a constitutional part of a hedgerow is is priceless . It has specially unpleasant thorn which make it a pretty ruffianly stock proof barrier against cattle and sheep .

The thorns have a nasty wont of go septic if they get into your pelt : the only means to stop it is an operation to find and remove the offending routine of spikelet . Does not have to be very big : if you want to cure yourself of ever going near a Blackthorn without , at the very least , some sturdy gauntlets and possibly a full cause of armor then readthis .

The flowers are only modest but , for the abbreviated moment in which they brook alone and unquestioned by any other hedgerow plant , they are very cheering in a modest form of means . A capital swarm of white look way before the leaf and is cross-pollinate by insects – unlike the other early flowerer , the Hazel , which ids pollenate by jazz . Or Anemophily if you want to show off .

Although it may not be much of a glamourpuss it is unbelievably hospitable to the larvae of a whole encumbrance of moths include the beautifully bring up Mottled Pug

In the Autumn the tree diagram bring forth Sloes : these are small black berries which should be harvested just after the first frosts and are used for have Sloe Gin – which involves soaking the bletted * Prunus spinosa in gin and sugar for many weeks . The raw berry are to be avert as the are so acerb that they seem to suck all the wet out of your rima oris and leave behind you grimacing like a post operative Mickey Rourke

The wood is used to make the Irish Shillelagh ( one of the most unmanageable words in the world to spell ) which is a labored nine for make out the great unwashed over the chief . It also makes walking sticks for the officers of the Royal Irish Regiment .

So … now you know fairly much all you demand to know about Prunus spinosa . A shrub that is utile , beautiful , edible and a picayune second unsafe .

Very similar to a female child I meet in 1981 … .

bletting is the outgrowth where berries soften when frozen – this accelerates the rotting appendage . In curt , bletted fruit is damaged and beginning to rot . Yumm .

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