see it clearly

Hathorn Tree

Above a fifth of our forest trees belong to the Rose tribe, and nearly half of them have white flowers. Among these, none, perhaps, exceed in beauty that characteristically English tree, the Hawthorn, Cratcegus oxyacantha. True, its geographical range includes all Europe, the north of Africa, and the west and north of Asia, whilst it has been introduced into North America; but in England, from the earliest days of private property in land, it has been chief hedge-forming bush, and perhaps many of the large, manyboled trees on England's bare hillsides or commons date from even an earlier period.

"Haw" is the same as "hedge;" and in the north the fruits of the Thorn are still termed "haigs," so that it is somewhat doubtful whether the word "hedge" is derived from the name of the tree that bears the "haws," or whether, as is more probable, the fruit took its name from being borne on a hedgerow tree.

This fruit resembles a miniature rosy-cheeked apple. Though it may consist of but one "carpel," while in the allied genus Pyrus there are never less than two, it often has, as we shall see, five of these divisions. In either case the round or oval fruit is surmounted, as in the apple, by the withered remains of the calyx. The mealy flesh of the fruit, which is perfectly wholesome--though so tasteless as generally to be left, even by the omnivorous schoolboy, to the birds--conceals the upper end of the bony core. This boniness of the core is one of the leading distinctions of the genus Crataegus.

There are some fifty species of Hawthorn, all confined to the north temperate zone. They are seldom more than twenty feet in height; but aged specimens sometimes have boles two or three feet in diameter, or still more frequently divide into several stout ascending limbs, from which the multitudinous boughs and twigs spread outwards, forming a close, round-headed bush, the favorite nesting resort of many of our feathered friends.

The bark is of a dull gray, and the boughs are usually beset with thorns. The leaves are small, and have a short but distinct stalk, whilst their outline is extremely variable; and the snowy flowers are grouped in flat clusters, each containing many blossoms, in the center of each of which is the bunch of stamens, whose delicate pink anthers soon become brown as they burst and discharge their pollen.

There are several wild varieties of the Hawthorn, besides the many cultivated sorts in our gardens and shrubberies. One, known as Cratagus oxyacanthoides by botanists, has larger flowers and fruit, with a smooth flower stalk and calyx tube, and with two or three "carpels," or divisions, to the core; whilst another, C. monogyna, has deeply-cut leaves, downy flower stalks, and smaller flowers and fruit, the flowers appearing later, usually in June, and the fruit having, as indicated by the scientific name, only one carpel. The fruits of these two forms can be distinguished at a glance, by having either several styles, or only a single one, projecting, like a little thread, from the opening surrounded by the withered calyx. Other forms have yellow, black, greenish-orange, or dull white fruits, whilst every one knows the varieties with double, pink, or scarlet flowers. Most people, too, must have heard of the celebrated Glastonbury Thorn, reputed to have sprung from the staff of St. Joseph of Arimathea, planted on the top of Glastonbury Tor, which blossoms early in the year, and sometimes as early as Old Christmas Day, January 6th, besides flowering later in the spring. Botanists term this variety pracox; and the same occurrence is not unknown in other plants.

The Thorn may be propagated either by seed or by cuttings, from which last it gets its name of "quick-set."

Under its various names of Albespeine, Whitethorn, Hawthorn, May, and Quickset, this tree must always have been a favorite with all lovers of the country. It was formerly regarded as the emblem of hope, and was carried by the ancient Greeks in their wedding processions, and used to deck the altar of Hymen. Its symbolism has, however, undergone a change, probably owing to the mediaeval belief which is so quaintly told by Sir John Maundeville:--

"Then," he writes, "was our Lord yled into a gardyn, and there the Jewes scorned hym, and maden hym a crown of the branches of the Albiespyne, that is Whitethorn, that grew in the same gardyn, and setten yt upon hys heved. And therefore hath the Whitethorn many virtues. For he that beareth a branch on hym thereof, no thundre, ne no maner of tempest, may dere hym, ne in the howse that yt is ynne may non evil ghost enter."

The Hawthorn is still known in Germany as Christdorn; and the tradition is current among the French peasantry that it utters groans and cries on Good Friday; whilst in England, an old superstition that it is unlucky to uproot a Thorn tree still lingers, often in a belief that it is ill-omened to bring boughs of it into the house.

The quiet pastoral charm of this tree has endeared it to poets, who have sung its praises in conjunction with those of almost every season of the year. In winter, when

"Through the sharp hawthorn blows the cold wind,"

its boughs can hardly be said to present a cheerful aspect. They appear dull grey, or, at a little distance, almost as a black blot upon the landscape, save when the mildness of the season may have allowed the fastidious birds to leave its heavy crop of crimson fruit, preferring daintier fare.

Even then, when, as Sackville says--

"Hawthorne has lost his motley lyverye,
The naked twigges are shivering all for colde,
And dropping-down the teares abundantly,"

the sunbeams, glistening on dew or hoar-frost or the delicate threads of the gossamer, lend it a borrowed grace.

Again, in a manuscript account of "The State of Eton School, A.D. 1560," in the British Museum, it is stated that, on the day of St. Philip and St. James--i.e., the first of May--

"if it be fair weather, and the master grants leave, those boys who choose it may rise at four o'clock, to gather May branches, if they can do it without wetting their feet; and that on that day they adorn the windows of the bed-chamber with green leaves, and the houses are perfumed with fragrant herbs."

The long leafy sprays, whose foliage is, however, almost hidden by the lavish masses of blossom that have earned for the plant the name of Whitethorn, as opposed to the black, leafless boughs visible between the snowy flowers of the Blackthorn, seem to have attracted most of those who write its praises, its fragrance being a great additional source of pleasure. Thus, in the "Forest Minstrel," William Howitt sings of

"The beautiful Hawthorn, that has now put on
Its summer luxury of snowy wreaths,
Bending its branches in exuberant bloom,
While to the light enamour'd gale it breathes,
Rife as its loveliness, its rare perfume. Glory of England's landscape! Favourite tree
Of bard or lover! It flings far and free
Its grateful incense."

That is, indeed, a joyous season of the year, when the air is fresh with the breath of flowers, and free from the dust of later summer; when the meadows are gay with cowslips, buttercups, or ladies'-smocks, and the woods still rejoice in primrose, orchis, hyacinth, and anemone; when the trees have not lost the first freshness of their greenery, and the hedgerows on the distant hill-side look like billowy snowdrifts unmelted by the summer sun. As Spenser says:--

"Youngthes folke now flocke in everywhere
To gather May buskets and smelling Brere;
And home they hasten the postes to dight,
And all the kirk pillours eare day-light,
With Hawthorne buds and sweet Eglantine."

The thickly-set boughs, whether in flower or in leaf, make the Thorn afford a pleasant shade on the open down or by the village green. There, at noontide--

"Every shephered tells his tale
Under the Hawthorn in the dale:"

whilst, later in the day, young lovers

"In other's arms breathe out the tender tale,
Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the evening gale;"

whilst Goldsmith tells us that the shade may be pleasing to others besides Milton's shepherds and Burns' lovers:--

"The Hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade,
For talking age or whispering lovers made."

The scarlet variety of the May, when in flower, has, by itself, perhaps, too glaring an effect, making one feel oppressed with heat through the eyes, as, by its powerful perfume, through the nostrils; but it is admirable when in a clump with several of the white-blossomed forms, especially if in a shrubbery with a neighboring Laburnum. Thorns are pleasing when thus placed on the edge of the lawn or park, on the outside of the belt of trees, or in their most frequent situation, the hedgerow. Undoubtedly, however, the most effective use of Thorns is, either singly or in clumps, in the park, for they are rather too untidy for the lawn; or in the wild garden, especially on any elevated knoll. The landscape-gardener of the future will think himself fortunate if he find one or two venerable Thorns, with much-divided boles, and with blossom-laden boughs yearly sweeping to the ground, ready to his hand in such situations.

The colors of decay, the sign of autumn's reign and of winter's approach, the tattered ensigns of beauty waved aloft in forlorn hope of the fight against the blackness of winter, the end of which is foredoomed, have formed the theme of the poet less often than the joyous glories of spring and summer; but when the summer beauty of the Thorn, "with its locks o' siller grey," has given place to the green fruit ripening to a pure, though opaque, crimson, the leaves put on what is, indeed, as Sackville described it, a "motley lyverye." Some become a clearer green, losing the yellow and brown shades that have dulled in July their April verdancy. Others blush pink on one half of the leaf, or at their edges, whilst others outvie the crimson of the fruit or the reddish-purple of a rain-stained hunting-coat. Some become yellow as the Maple, others orange or russet, until the later mists of autumn reduce all this varied splendor to the uniform dull brown of decay, which on the ground soon becomes a mere black leaf-mould--

"And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe,
And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot."

The wood of the Hawthorn can seldom be obtained of a large-enough size for much practical use, and is liable to warp; but its toughness recommends its use for the cogs of wooden mill-wheels, and, as a substitute for box-wood in engraving. The bark has been used in tanning, and the leaves as a substitute for tea; but, except as making a dense, quick-growing, and ornamental hedge, the Hawthorn is certainly far rather beautiful than merely useful.