Early blooms

I LOVE the period between mid-February and early May.

The days are getting longer all the time and new flowers are appearing all the time.

Records sent in by our botanical nature spies always come in thick and fast during this period.

The first lesser celandines are already with us in some numbers and I have seen my first violet of the year in Brierfield Woods.

Soon the blackthorn blossom will burst and one of the most fascinating sights is when the whole blooms become coated with snow and ice.

Plants are much tougher than we think.

The scientific name for the blackthorn, which is also known as sloe, is prunus spinosa.

In Ireland the shrub is sometimes called the "tranquiliser" because the lethal-looking shillelagh was made from a stout bough of blackthorn.

Because the flowers almost always appear before the leaves, sloe blossom is among the earliest signs of spring, bringing the promise of kinder weather, even though the chill north wind may be blasting across the land. Blackthorn spreads not only through the distribution of the seed within its sour - but still edible - fruit, but also by putting out suckers.

These quickly produce a substantial thicket from a single tree, which makes the blackthorn a very effective hedging plant.

Another useful feature is that the plant is, as its name implies, very thorny, which prevents grazing animals from pushing through it. In times past, blackthorn had many uses. Its leaves were once gathered and brewed like tea.

In the war my great grandmother mixed sloe leaves with the tea ration and nobody noticed the difference.

The sloe fruits themselves are still made into wine or mixed to make sloe gin or sloe brandy.

In England, juice squeezed out of the unripe fruit was once sold under the trade name of German Acacia and was used to mark linen.

It made an excellent laundry marker because the mark would not wash out.

The bark of the tree was once used in the manufacture of ink and if it is boiled up in alkali the dark colour disappears and an attractive yellow dye is produced.

It is amazing how many of these old country recipes have disappeared with the coming of chemically-manufactured textile dyes.

Even if we do not use them any more, it is part of our heritage to preserve the memory.

Apart from the Irish clubs (tranquilisers indeed!) blackthorn wood is easy to polish and it shines like ebony.

It was once used to make flails for threshing corn, hayrakes, and is still popular with those skilled craftsmen who make walking sticks.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.