English Hawthorne

If you’ve been travelling in central PEI lately, you’ve likely noticed a showy roadside tree with dense clusters of white flowers along the topsides of its branches – gardeners may be reminded of a giant version of the popular Bridal Wreath Spirea. This is English Hawthorne (Crataegus monogyna) and it’s having a banner year!

PEI has several native species of Hawthornes that hybridize readily, making them notoriously hard to tell apart. However, our non-native English Hawthorne is easy to identify: in addition to those distinctive flowers, this plant has leaves that are deeply lobed, and thorns that are short (inset photo). Our native Hawthornes have leaves that are more rounded, and thorns that can be five to eight centimetres (two to three inches) long!

English Hawthorne’s short, sharp thorns, fast growth, and ability to form dense thickets made it excellent for creating impenetrable hedges, useful for delineating boundary lines, containing livestock, and deterring intruders (both four-legged, and two). These helpful traits saw English Hawthorne brought to North America in the 1800s as a plant for gardens and agricultural hedgerows. I’ve only come across a few examples of old Hawthorne hedgerows on PEI – and more of those have been our native long-thorned species than the short-thorned newcomer – but English Hawthorne was well-established between Summerside and Charlottetown by the 1950s.

The flowers in this photo have been pollinated, as shown by the black tips on the spiky stamens; if the pollen were still there, those tips would be pink. Pollinated flowers will mature into red berries called Haws, each with a single, hard seed (hence the ‘monogyna’ species name). Haws from all our species are edible and rich in fibre, pectin, and Vitamin C; while not particularly palatable on their own, they make excellent jams, jellies, and sauces, or can be steeped with vodka to create Hawthorne liquor. I have lots of native Hawthornes on my own land and so don’t bother foraging English Hawthornes, but I do make Hawthorne products every year.

Hawthornes are members of the Rose Family (Rosaceae) and, like their relatives (Apples and Cherries, for example), their seeds contain amygdalin, a natural chemical that is converted to hydrogen cyanide in our bodies. We’ve all eaten a few Apple seeds or Cherry pits in our day without harm, but it’s best to avoid eating any quantity of these, or Hawthorne seeds. Stick to recipes that strain the seeds from the pulp and juice.

English Hawthorne is very common in central PEI, somewhat common in the east, but not at all common west of Summerside. Now is the perfect time to spot this member of PEI Untamed!