THE ENGLISH HAWTHORN 



THE literary fame of few trees rests more secure than that of the English Hawthorn, 

 the "May" of the great poets. For centuries the species has been used for 

 hedges and for ornamental planting in Great Britain, and its blossoming beauty 

 has become a part of the mental imagery of every inhabitant. In " Brittannias Pastorals " 

 long ago one of the early poets sang: 



"Mark the faire blooming of the hawthorn-tree, 

 Who finely clothsd in a robe of white. 

 Fill full the wanton eye with May's delight." 



And Sir John Mandeville told the story of an old tradition in these words : 



"Then was our Lord yled into a gardyn, and there the Jewes scorned hym and made hym a crowne of 

 the branches of the albiespyne, that is whitethorn, which grew in the same gardyn, and setten yt upon hys 

 head. And therefore has the whitethorn many virtues. For he that beareth a branch on hvm thereof, no 

 thundre, ne no manre of tempest may dere hym, ne in the house that it is ynne may non evil ghost enter." 



A well-known student of English landscapes and English literature, Mr. J. Harvey 

 Bloom, in his "Shakespeare's Garden" says of the Hawthorn: "Its snowy blossoms, 

 massed in profuse luxuriance on their setting of bright green leaves, serve to make a 

 Hawthorn glade one of the loveliest components of English scenery. And when the leaves 

 are painted with their autumnal dyes, and the bright red hips appear, it is almost equally 

 striking." And a modern poet, in The Century Magazine, has suggested a beauty of the 

 later season in the lines: 



" Oho, Oho for the hunting. 

 In the crisp October morn, 

 With the hoar of the frost like a kerchief toss'd 

 On- the black of the twisted thorn." 



The English Hawthorn is known technically as Cratcegus Oxyacantha. There is 

 one variety of this species which has yellow fruit, but according to Mr. Alfred Rehder's 

 monograph in the "Cyclopedia of Horticulture," most of the many cultivated forms which 

 are commonly referred to Oxyacantha really belong to another species, Crataegus monogyna. 

 More than a dozen of these garden forms are recognized as distinct ; several of these are 

 very attractive, and well worthy of cultivation in parks and private grounds. There are 

 single and double white-flowered varieties, and single and double red-flowered varieties, 

 as well as varieties with pendulous foliage, and others with variegated foliage. 



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