Nottingham Wildlife Trust: Spotting some signs that spring has sprung
On reviewing a number of my pieces for this and other publications and noticing just how often I refer to the signs of spring, I started to wonder if my desire to see winter morph into spring was a sign of a deeper-rooted issue with the long, dark days of winter than I thought.
But I’m sure I’m not alone in wanting to see the back of winter and I’m definitely more aware than ever of my keenness to spot any tiny signs that spring is here and my delight when I do spot evidence of the seasonal shift if palpable.
One of the real delights of the season for me is a plant that helps bridge the gap between the dull days of winter and the bright, vibrant days that spring promises — the blackthorn. Often considered a twin plant of the hawthorn or whitethorn, this stalwart of our hedgerows bursts into life with a huge display of blossom early in the year — well before its leaves have formed. These displays of white flowers have been likened to a dusting of snow or a haw frost on the bare branches.
For me, the sight of swathes of blackthorn blossom along the hedgerows is a real fillip and one which always warms my heart.
In my personal pecking order, my fondness for the blackthorn’s blossom sits slightly ahead of my penchant tree’s deep blue fruits — known as sloes — that are born late in the year. My family and friends are well aware of my interest in making what might be termed ‘hedgerow liqueurs’ and sloe gin, or more often, sloe vodka, is among my favourite tipples. If tasted before the first frosts, these firm astringent berries seem so harsh to modern taste buds that it’s hard to believe they have formed part of the human diet for millennia. Mainly used today as a flavouring for alcoholic drinks, usually loaded with sugar, it suggests much of their early use may have been medicinal — and there’s plenty of links with witchcraft and druidry, with references to their use in all manner of potions.
Further evidence of their medicinal benefits came when a small number of dried sloes were found among the items carried by the Neolithic traveller whose mummified remains were found on a glacier in the Autrian Tyrol region back in 1991. The man, sometimes referred to as The Iceman also had sloe stones, or pits, in his stomach. The fact he was travelling in spring or early summer means that the sloes were not simply picked en-route.
They must have been collected and dried the previous autumn — implying he had some empirical knowledge of their health benefits to justify including them in the kit on his journey through the high mountains. Their high Vitamin C content and the ability of compounds found within to soothe diarrhoea aid the healing of wounds and treat a wide range of conditions, which must have justified their place among any prepared traveller’s kit.
Such is the sharpness of these fruits that it’s surprising to learn they are the ancestor of all modern plum varieties including the Victoria Plum. Many fruit varieties are still grafted to the root stock of blackthorns to provide vigour to the much more palatable and profitable fruits. The pleasure I glean from the blossom and berries across the seasons is offset to some extent by my loathing of the eponymous thorns. I seem incapable of carrying out any work on my allotment hedgerows without spearing my fingers — an event that always triggers a choice selection of expletives.
The thorns have a reputation for turning wounds septic, ironic given the sloes reputed medicinal properties, so I’m always keen to extract any splinters as soon as possible. Despite my best efforts with pins and pen-knives I often find tiny I have tiny embedded fragments of thorn causing me pain days after being impaled. These thorns, however, should be celebrated as they are the very reasons we still see so much blackthorn in our countryside. So vicious are the spikes and such is the tendency of this small tree, so small that it is often considered a mere shrub, to grow into a dense tangle of branches that it became, along with the hawthorn, the go to plant for creating stock proof boundary hedgerows in the time before stock fencing and barbed wire. And despite me being on the losing side of an argument with a thorn, I wouldn’t be without this plant on my allotment. The pleasure I take from seeing the white blossom, or supping a warming tot of a liqueur flavoured with its berries on a cold winter’s day, means I am willing to forgive its barbs and the occasional slightly septic finger.
Erin McDaid
— Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust