ICOSANDRIA. DIGYNIA. Cratjegus, 
597 
occasionally happen on the precise day, as recorded in the legend, E.) 
but sometimes sooner. These produce no fruit. The berries contain 
only one seed, and there seemed only to have been one pistil, but it was 
late in the season when I examined it, (Oct. 1792). I was informed that 
the berries when sown produce plants nowise differing from the common 
Hawthorn. Probably the tree which gave birth to the tradition (of its 
having sprung originally from the staff of Joseph of Arimathea, who* 
with his missionary companions, resolving there to found the first Chris¬ 
tian church in this land, stuck it into the ground, when it quickly put 
forth branches and blossoms. E.) grew within the walls of the abbey, 
and may have died from age, or been destroyed at the time of the Re¬ 
formation.* 
White-thorn. Haw-thorn. May. (Quick, or Quick-set. Welsh: 
Draenen-wen ; Yspyddaden. Gaelic: Ansgitheach. C. Oxyacantlia. Linn, 
and most authors. Mespilus Oxyacantha. Gsert. Sm. E.) Hedges,, 
woods, and old parks. (With white berries, near Bampton, Oxfordshire. 
E.) T. May—June.f 
* (However that may have been, the existence of this lu&us natures , (to which some few 
other instances approximate, vid. Qusrcus), is unquestionable, and proved to be something 
more than what Dr. Hunter apprehended, “ a sanctified deceit, sunk into discredit even 
with the meanest of the vulgar.” Sylv. i. 178. We therefore, in addition to the particulars 
given by our author of this extraordinary, though not miraculous thorn, nearly forty years 
ago, insert a few selected from the “ History of the Abbey of Glaston,” 4to. 1826, by the 
Rev. R. Warner, F. A. S. who has ably illustrated the interesting remains of that superb 
monastic establishment, 
“ Where pendent ivy ill supplies 
With perishable gloom 
Those rays that, rich in varying dyes, 
Gleam’d o’er a martyr’s tomb.” 
“ Since Dr. Withering’s time,” observes Mr. Warner, “ the Holy Thorn has been 
introduced into many parts ; and is now found in various gardens of Glastonbury and its 
vicinity. Pilgrimages continued to be made to this wonderful tree, even in Mr. Eyston’s 
time;” (ob. 1721). “and its scions were sought for with the greatest avidity, both by 
the pious of the Romish Church, and the superstitious of other systems of faith, till within 
these eighty years.”—London Evening Post, Jan. 1753: “A vast concourse of people 
attended the noted thorn on Christmas-day, new style; but, to their great disappointment, 
there was no appearance of its blowing, which made them watch it narrowly t ill the fifth 
of January, the Christmas-da)', old style, when it blowed as usual.” Strype records one of 
Hen. VIII.’s “ Visiters ” having at the spoliation of the Abbey, sent up with various relicks, 
(in 1536), “ First, two flowers, wrapped in white and black sarcenet, that on Christenmass 
even t hora ipsa, qua Christus natus fuerat , will spring, and burgen, and bare biossomes.” A 
later authority states, “ in a word, the blossoms of this tree were such curiosities beyond 
seas, that the Bristol merchants carried them into foreign parts.”—According to some 
writers the spot on which St. Joseph originally planted his staff, and where the wonderful 
thorn stood, and successors of the same peculiar kind were for centuries, by grafts or buds, 
preserved, until the political commotions in the reign of Charles I, when the tree, being 
considered a relic of Papistry, was nearly destroyed by a puritan soldier (who lost his own 
life by a splinter in the impious attempt), was on the south ridge of Weary-all-Hill, 
at present called Werrall Park. About, the year 1740, the stump or root was to be seen, 
but nothing now (Avalonian Guide, 1818), remains except grafts from it growing in differ¬ 
ent places : the oldest of them stands near St. John’s Church-yard at Glastonbury, and 
is a large tree which continues to blossom twice a year.” Pi.) 
t On account of the stiffness of its branches, the sharpness of its thorns, its roots not 
spreading wide, and its capability of bearing the severest, winters without injury. Hawthorn 
is universally preferred for making hedges, whether to clip or to grow at large. (The 
bark, with copperas, is used by the Highlanders to dye black; and without, yellow. In 
