Sorbus aucuparia has predictably been deployed against a variety of ail-
ments—though not nearly as widely as one might have expected. In seven-
teenth-century Wales the berries were eaten for scurvy,^259 in the eighteenth
century a purge was derived from the bark in Moray^260 and in the nineteenth
century some unstated part of the tree was valued in Aberdeenshire for
toothache.^261 A gargle made from the boiled berries^262 is on record from the
Highlands as well.
Ireland’s greater tradition of utilising the bark of trees for medicinal pur-
poses finds reflection in the boiling of that for a cough cure in Louth^263 and
its inclusion in a herbal mixture taken for ‘the evil’ (i.e. scrofula) in Sligo.^264
In Cavan the leaves have served as a poultice for sore eyes, and the berries
have been eaten raw as a cleansing tonic for the blood^265 ; the berries, too,
have been eaten in ‘Ulster’ to rid the body of worms.^266
Crataegus monogyna Jacquin
hawthorn, quick, mayflower, whitethorn
Europe, western Asia, North Africa; introduced into North America,
Australasia
Crataegus laevigata (Poiret) de Candolle
C. oxycanthoides Thuillier
midland hawthorn
western and central Europe; introduced into North America
Like the rowan (Sorbus aucuparia) and elder (Sambucus nigra), fellow trees
bearing sprays of white blossom, hawthorns have had strong magico-reli-
gious associations down the millennia, associations which have hung on in
rural Ireland till relatively recent years. Today, by far the commoner of the two
species native to the British Isles,Crataegus monogyna may formerly have
been the rarer in southern England, for its degree of interfertility with the
midland hawthorn,C. laevigata,is so great that it must once have been iso-
lated from it ecologically in order to have survived as a separate species. Bio-
metric studies have shown that present-day hawthorn populations consist
of an admixture of the two to a much greater extent than previously sus-
pected, the product not only of hybridisation in the wild but probably also of
much planting in the past of nursery stock of hybrid origin.Crataegus laevi-
gata is essentially a woodland plant of clay soils, while C. monogyna was prob-
ably originally confined to open scrub on limestone and chalk, and to fens.
Crataegus laevigata seems the more likely to have attracted awe, for it is the
only one reliably in flower on Old May Day in southern England and alleg-
Currants, Succulents and Roses 155