NATURE TABLE: Hawthorn

The flowers of hawthorn are often called May blossom but they are usually at their best in early June. 

Because spring is late this year they have only started to appear in the past week in colder parts of the country. The reason for this is that May blossom was given its name before the introduction of the Gregorian Calendar in 1582 at a time when May was a couple of weeks later in the year.

Hawthorn is a native shrub or small tree, one of the commonest in the country. The reason it’s so common is that since the land enclosures of the 18th and 19th centuries it has been widely planted as a field boundary — it’s one of the few native plants that can be managed to produce a hedge that will keep in livestock.