Hawthorn blooms are stunning, with clouds of white blossoms among glossy, bright green leaves. The flowers have a heavy, sweet scent that is irresistible to bees. Bears in the fall Crataegus monogyna, single-style hawthorn, bright red berries that birds like to eat and are good for jelly.
„Quand l’épine blanche est fleurie, la gelée a partie“, says a French proverb. When the white hawthorn blooms, the frost is over. This has always been true in my gardening experience of about forty years. The intoxicating, unstoppable flowering of hawthorn symbolizes “heart fire that comes out and flows out to all living things,” says Maja Kooistra in her book Living with Trees (2024). The hawthorn is a key player in Walpurgisnacht, the pre-Christian fertility festival that begins at sunset on April 30 and is celebrated, among other things, with the planting of a maypole.
In Western art history from the late Middle Ages, the hawthorn blossom represents compassion and virtue. In the 16th-century French book of hours of Anne of Brittany, illuminated by Jean Bourdichon, a page is decorated with a flowering hawthorn branch, a graceful dragonfly and another winged insect that, perhaps, symbolizes transience.
In Western art history, the hawthorn blossom represents compassion and virtue
Around 1900, images of hawthorn were popular for decorative applications in Art Nouveau and Art Deco. The Rijksmuseum has a beautiful study sheet by the painter and furniture designer Theo Nieuwenhuis (1866-1951), with a lush tangle of apple blossoms, dead nettle, hawthorn and ground ivy, loosely strewn over the sheet and each plant drawn very precisely. Nieuwenhuis made botanical drawings of flowers and plants to illustrate Dutch flora, but also as decoration for certificates and posters and as a design for wallpaper. On the study sheet, the contours of the various plants are strongly emphasized, against a black background that further enhances the decorative effect.
Theo Nieuwenhuis, ‘Study sheet with apple blossom, dead nettle, hawthorn and ground ivy’, 1896-1905.
Rijksmuseum collection
Vicious thorns
Hawthorn not only has white flowers and red berries, but also vicious thorns up to two and a half centimeters long. Perhaps the bush owes its meaning of virtue to this. The story goes that Saint Benedict threw himself naked into a hawthorn bush to curb his sexual urges. The scene is depicted on a small stained glass window (ca. 1496), the Self-flagellation of Saint Benedict after a design by Albrecht Dürer, in the collection of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. Satan, in the form of a black bird, flutters around the saint who lies praying on his stomach among the thorns in the hilly landscape near his monastery.
Albrecht Dürer, ‘Self-flagellation of Saint Benedict’, c. 1496.
Photo Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston
The thorns make a mature hawthorn hedge an impenetrable barrier. This is how it is described in the Flora Batava 1800–1934 (2023): “Of all shrubs and trees, this one produces the best living hedge, which grows the densest and, through its thorns, completely prevents the intrusion of cattle or malicious people, just as it is planted in our country on all soils provided they are not too arid, for that purpose.” A hawthorn hedge can grow up to about 4.5 meters high.
Giant rhinos once roamed our region and elephants weighing up to thirteen tons
The spines of hawthorn and other thorny shrubs such as blackthorn and blackberry go back a long time in history. According to ecologists, the shrub has developed its thorns as a defense against large grazers. Once upon a time, until about 30,000 years ago – in geological terms that is yesterday – giant rhinos roamed our regions and elephants weighing up to thirteen tons. And also, unbelievably, giant deer (megaloceros giganteus) with hoe-shaped antlers that were up to three meters long and weighed up to fifty kilos, as well as dire wolves, aurochs, wild horses, cave lions, saber-toothed tigers, lions, leopards, wild boars, hyenas and many other large animals. Herds of giant herbivores grazed open spaces, churned up the soil and ate young shoots of trees. In this way, they prevented the growth of dense forests and stimulated an open, dynamic system in which trees, shrubs, grassy savannas and peatlands and swampy areas alternated.
Megafauna disappeared due to humans
About 85 percent of this ‘megafauna’ disappeared with the spread of humans across the globe, from about 50,000 years BC. Finds of animal remains show that the extermination of large animals followed the spread of humans. This happened relatively late in North and South America, between 15,000 and 10,000 years ago, and most recently in New Zealand, with the settlement of Polynesians between 1250 and 1300 AD.
Many of Europe’s trees and shrubs have co-evolved with the mega-sized grazers. They have developed ways to defend themselves against elephants that tear off branches, rub against trees and trample small trees. These trees and shrubs have an exceptional ability to sprout new shoots from broken branches, to grow protective scar tissue over stripped bark and over deep damage to the trunk. They also produce unpalatable tannins and aggressive thorns that repel hungry animals.
Jan Anton Garemyn, ‘Hawthorn’, 1790 – 1799.
Rijksmuseum collection
Today, the regenerative properties of trees and shrubs are still used. Oak, beech, ash, chestnut, hazelnut, willow and many other species are topped and pruned as hedges and used for coppice production. For centuries, spiked hedges were highly prized. Blackthorn branches were used for walking sticks and the berries for medicine and as a flavoring of wine and gin. Blackberries were not only eaten, but were also useful as a dye. Hawthorn provided wood for flails and tool handles, hazel and cardinal’s hat provided wood for baskets, broom for brooms (bromine), juniper provided wood for pencils and distilling oil and hips of dog rose for syrup and jam. But above all, thornbushes were used to protect young trees from animal predation, which is why the thornbush is sometimes called “the mother of the oak.” Nowadays, thorny shrubs are again used in this way, for example in nature conservation projects, such as in the Oostvaarderplassen where dog rose and blackthorn are planted to keep red deer and aurochs at bay.
Until the 20th century, in large parts of our country, fields and meadows were lined with thickets of hawthorn and other thorny shrubs. In a photo by nature photographer Richard Tepe in the Rijksmuseum, Hawthorn in bloom (1900-1930), such a wild, truly grand hedge can be seen, crowned with white blossoms. The photo shows a paradisiacal desolation that, to my knowledge, we do not encounter anywhere else in the Netherlands.
The clearing of the spiked hedges from the 1960s for large-scale agriculture means a major loss of landscape beauty and biodiversity
Most of the thorny hedges have been cleared since the 1960s to make way for the endless green expanses of large-scale agriculture. This means a great loss of landscape beauty and biodiversity. It is precisely the transition zones between different landscapes, between grassland, forest, swamp, heath and dunes, that are rich in life. Thickets provide shelter for many types of small animals, such as hares, hedgehogs and birds, as well as invertebrates.
Richard Tepe, ‘Hawthorn in bloom’, 1900-1930.
Rijksmuseum collection
Charles Donker, ‘Hawthorn Haag’, 1974.
Collection Centraal Museum Utrecht
How hawthorn survived in our country in the second half of the 20th century can be seen in a small etching by Charles Donker from 1974 (Central Museum Utrecht collection). Short-shaven hedges stand lost in an empty and desolate landscape with a low horizon and white sky. The irony is that this image fits the modernist ideal in the art of the time, with a sleek, abstract geometry. A greater contrast with the flowering hawthorn in Tepe’s photo is hardly imaginable.
Actions to bring back shrubs
Actions are now underway throughout the country to restore shrubs to the arable landscape and farmers and garden owners are encouraged to plant thorny shrubs: blackthorn, which blooms earliest, spurgewood, dog rose, eglantine, red dogwood, and wild pear. You would plant these shrubs just for their name and it is all beautiful, especially if you have the space to let them grow widely. But of all these shrubs, the hawthorn blooms the most beautifully.
