Mary Green looks at some of the traditions associated with may blossom.
March was very cold, coming in and continuing like the proverbial lion, though it was pleasantly lamb-like at the end, and April was traditionally changeable.
The season continues to be a little odd. Although the blackthorn flowered late, the plum tree in my garden came out a week earlier than usual. During March I saw the wild daffodils in bloom in Farndale in North Yorkshire, which were perfectly on time. I saw my first bluebell out locally in March.
I think May is my favourite month. The everyday hedges and verges look celebratory in frothy white, and the sun feels warm at last. May blossom, or hawthorn, has always been associated in England with the celebration of Mayday, which is the ancient Celtic feast of Beltane marking the start of summer.
In the days before the change of calendar in 1715, the blossom did indeed show around the start of the month. After that time, it generally didn’t come out until halfway through the month. In my childhood I always associated may blossom with my birthday towards the end of May.
Now the wheel has come full circle, and with warmer springs the may blossom is usually again out for Mayday. “May Day” celebrations, however, often went on for several weeks as this was once an immensely popular festival, second only to Christmas in the number and range of celebrations.
There are two or three different varieties of hawthorn round here, affecting the blossoming time. The oldest form is the less common Midland or woodland hawthorn, which blooms early and has a slightly larger shinier leaf and strong-smelling flowers.
The more usual kind is the common hawthorn, which forms most of the hedges round our fields and farms.
It’s hard to imagine that before the eighteenth century these ribbons of hawthorn hedge didn’t exist, because farm land was not enclosed. The older Midland hawthorn was more likely to occur as individual trees and small clumps. It was a much cherished tree and often used as a boundary marker.
The third kind of hawthorn is a variety from continental Europe often planted along motorways and new bypasses. This is also early-flowering and is one of the reasons hawthorn blossom is often first seen while driving along the motorway.
The other reasons are the slightly warmer microclimate along motorways, and the fact that motorway verges are ironically a great wildlife corridor, set back from people.
Much of the hawthorn hedging around fields, canal and ordinary roads is so severely cut back that blossoming is slow and weak, and one Midland hawthorn along the canal (along with an unusual bullace plum) was cut down completely last winter by British Waterway’s contractors.
In the ancient Celtic traditions, the hawthorn or “huathe” was one of the thirteen trees forming part of the cycle of the year. It was associated with purity and love, but also grew at the gates of death and the underworld. These associations included sex and fertility, reinforced by the characteristic musky smell of the flowers.
The complicated meaning of hawthorn was retained in its Christian symbolism. This includes the planting of the early-blossoming hawthorn at Glastonbury by Joseph of Arimathea, and a belief that hawthorn was used for Christ’s crown of thorns.
Because of the symbolism of white blossom for purity, it was also associated with the Virgin Mary and in some places seen as a Roman Catholic tree. All of these have led to rather ambivalent attitudes to the plant.
It is part of outdoor May Day celebrations, but is “unlucky” if brought indoors, especially in Puritanical and Protestant England.
For most of us, though, May blossom just epitomises that promising time of late spring and early summer, when the hedges and verges foam with white.
Below the hawthorn will be frothy cow parsley and big white moon daisies, and above will be the dizzy spires of horse chestnut flowers. Sometimes the whole world seems to be green and white.
In the hedges and woods alongside the hawthorn you may be lucky enough to find a wild service tree. These are generally fairly rare now, though more common in this area, as they are remnants of the kind of ancient forests found in the Midlands. I know of five within walking distance of my house.
The tree is a bit like a field maple, with flowers rather like a large creamy hawthorn, attractive cracked bark, and brown fruit in the autumn. These used to be called “chequers” and are edible when very ripe. A drink was made from them and many Chequers pubs are thought to be named after them.
As you will know if you’ve read my previous articles, I am more interested in the everyday wildlife around here than in the kind of thing you have to wait hours to see in a special place. However, there is one special place I would recommend visiting.
Just a few miles south of Tardebigge lie Eades Meadows, managed by the Worcestershire Wildlife Trust. There is a public footpath through them. They show what all our meadows would have been like at one time.
The land is “unimproved” and unploughed. Cattle graze it in autumn and winter and the grass and flowers grow through the summer and are mown in September.
The meadows have a huge population of the uncommon and beautiful green-winged orchid, in all shades of pink and purple, growing among bluebells, cowslips, buttercups, bugle, and bird’s foot trefoil, and punctuated by ancient apple trees.
Later in the month the green-winged orchids are replaced by the common spotted orchid, accompanied by ragged robin in the wetter parts, beautiful pink hoary plantain, twayblade (another of the orchid family), sorrel, moon daisies and yellow rattle, a key marker of ancient meadows.
It’s the sort of place where you think you really should hear the cuckoo.
Iam writing this before the walk on May 5 when a group of people will be beating the bounds of Alvechurch parish. We should be walking among may blossom and fine golden oak and lime-green beech leaves, apple blossom and bluebells.
North of the Bittell reservoir we may see moschatel, a pretty little flower sometimes called Town Hall Clock because of its four faces. The older hedges will be full of stitchwort and red campion, and woodland and river banks perfumed with garlic. I’ll let you know next time what animals, insects and birds we see.
For the first time in the 22 years I have lived here, I recently saw something that will radically change the landscape. Between the canal and the Alvechurch-to-Hopwood road, there are several large fields planted with trees – a whole new wood.
There will be thousands of new birch, oak, willow and hawthorn trees. I wonder what the effect will be on other wildlife?
Oak
We expect it of the cherry
Pretty and slender, she shakes out her white cotton dress
She entrances us
And the apple, of course
A lusty lady coming out bold
Spunky and bloody
Singing I will survive
But the oak!
English man, the big daddy of the woods
Sturdy and a little stern
Going to sea or to war
Or wearing leather jackets and tattoos
All year he guards us, whether we want it or not
Then suddenly, as summer starts
He comes out
He is gold and green, he dazzles and dances
With his feet among the bluebells
Nothing in the world is so beautiful
Everywhere we look he sings out
I open my eyes and take him in
Come on, do that gold-dust dance with me
I promise not to tell your mates.