Seasonal Wild Flowers

Hawthorn

Latin name

Crataegus monogyna

Family

Rosaceae

Other names

May, bread and cheese

Flowering season

Late April to June

English distribution

It is found throughout the country.

See the BSBI distribution map for Hawthorn

Habitat

It is common in hedges, open woodland, scrub, waste

ground and brownfield sites.

Wind-shaped trees are found in exposed positions

by the sea and on hills.

Description

Hawthorn is a native, deciduous tree growing up to 15m.

The five petalled flowers are usually white, but pink forms

also occur, particularly late on in the flowering season.

Flowers are 8-15mm across with a single style and a

capitate or weakly bilobed stigma.

There are numerous stamens with lilac-coloured anthers

that turn dark-purple later.

Leaves have 3 to 5, deeply cut lobes. They appear just

before the flowers and are said to be edible.

As a child brought up in Suffolk in the 1940s, I was told

that hawthorn leaves were edible and known as bread

and cheese.

Berries are initially bright red, later turning reddish-brown.

Richard Mabey devotes several pages in Flora

Britannica (1996) to the folklore associated with Hawthorn

and suggests that it is the 'May' referred to in "Cast ne're

a clout ere May is out".

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Hawthorn tree

Flower spray

Capitate (bilobed?) stigma and lilac anthers

Pink form

Leaves

Hawthorn berries - haws

Hawthorn in September

Wind-shaped tree, Golden Cap, Dorset