Hawthorn Berries Australia – Harvesting hawthorn berries is new to me this year. They’re sweet and mild if you get them at just the right time, and for the past few years I’ve tried them too early in the fall. This year Washington Hawthorn was sweet and mild in late October. But by this time the lone-seeded hawthorn was starting to rot, so I’ll look for it in mid-October next year.
I owe some credit to Josh Fecteau’s recent hawthorn post, which inspired me to try hawthorn berries again. As Josh points out, there are many species of hawthorn, maybe 50 in New England. And across North America possibly a thousand species, according to George Symonds (from his wonderful book Tree Identification Book: A New Method for the Practical Identification and Recognition of Trees
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Hawthorn Berries Australia
, my favorite guide to learning Tree ID). Fortunately, you don’t need to be able to identify specific species. You just have to know that it’s a hawthorn, because all hawthorns have edible berries. HOWEVER, like apple seeds, hawthorn seeds contain cyanide and should not be eaten. No panic; Just spit out the seeds.
Leaves Of Hawthorn With Red Berries, Also Called Thornapple, May Stock Photo
Why bother with hawthorn? They are beautiful, interesting and tasty wild edibles with known health benefits. Some people use the berries to make hawthorn jelly, but I have yet to try that. Berries, leaves and flowers can be used to prepare a tea. Scroll to the bottom of the page to see how I make hawthorn berry extract.
I will describe two types here to illustrate the general characteristics. That should help you recognize a hawthorn when you see one, but i
If you are unsure if you have a hawthorn when foraging, please check with additional sources until you are sure before eating the berries.
This grows as a small tree or large shrub and bears clusters of white flowers in late spring. The berries turn red in September (here), but sweeten later. On October 31st they were sweet and maybe a little past peak. Each berry has 3-5 seeds.
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The leaves are lobed and toothed as you can see in my photo above. Many other hawthorn species have similar leaves. The tree is heavily armed with long thorns up to 3 inches long. However, with proper care, you can easily harvest the berries, which tend to droop from the branch. It’s even easier later in the season when a lot of the leaves have fallen and the thorns are no longer covering it.
Also called common hawthorn, this is a European native that escaped cultivation and became naturalized in North America. It’s sometimes branded an invasive plant, but I don’t find it very often, and when I see it, there isn’t much of it in an area. It may be invasive in other parts of the country, but it doesn’t seem particularly aggressive here. Like the Washington hawthorn, the single-seeded hawthorn grows as a shrub or small tree and bears clusters of white flowers in late spring. The oval red berries ripen slightly earlier (than Washington hawthorn) in the fall and contain a single seed (hence the name). The serrated leaves are more deeply lobed than those of the Washington hawthorn, but the thorns are much smaller, only about 1/2 inch to 2.5 cm long.
Hawthorns are common in the undergrowth of the woods here in Massachusetts, but these are scrawny specimens that do not bear good fruit. It’s too shady in the forest. To find fruit-laden hawthorns, look in sunny spots, such as B. Bush fields and thickets, on pasture edges and along streams. They are often planted as ornamental plants. So if your friend has one and doesn’t mind you picking some berries, you’ll have an easy foraging experience.
This is my first experience with hawthorn berries and I use them to make an extract using the same process you would use to make vanilla extract. I hope to use hawthorn extract as a flavoring in cooking and baking. I filled a clean mason jar about 3/4 full with berries, covered them with 80% vodka and sealed the jar. I’m not sure how long it will take to extract enough flavor from the berries, so I’ll check daily. I know other extracts (like vanilla extract) take weeks, so this is what I’m expecting. Sandy, Bedfordshire: Apart from elder, I don’t think any fruit tree or shrub has had a better year here
Street Tree: Washington Hawthorn
At both ends of the cattle gate, a battle of the reds takes place. On the left a rosebush leaning against an elder. His normally slender hips are a striking scarlet and unusually plump. At right, a hawthorn whose darker berries have swollen from the standard size of petits pois to that of garden peas.
This year, nature has weathered a wet winter, a spring of perpetual sunshine and persistent showers all summer to produce a bountiful harvest. Elderberry aside, I don’t think any fruit tree or bush has had a better year here. Our shrunken horizon makes me ignorantly wonder if the rest of the country shares the greatest glut of memories.
The softer, earlier fruits – blackberries and plums – are kept in our bottles, jars and jam-packed freezers. It looks as if whole carts of apples have fallen over under each crab tree, for they lie battered and blemished two or three thick on the ground. The sloe is still all blue-black with not much thorns showing.
Ivy, the last to bear fruit, is only just finishing its long flowering season, with dense clusters of green pearls promising a late-winter black berry bonanza.
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The ivy’s nectaries were so prolific that they kept swarms of wasps in buzzing presence throughout late summer, leaving our picnic table virtually unmolested. I thought the ivy flower smelled a bit foul, but it was obviously more appealing than anything we could cook.
The rose and hawthorn, two plants that exhibit a springtime pink and white show for pollination rights in the spring, appear to be in a fall “eat me,” “no, eat me” contest. A blackbird on the other side of the gate is working its way through the back of one of the bushes.
The larger rose hips – full bodied, shiny coat and resplendent under blue skies – are irresistible. The smaller hawthorn berries are dull, dull and partially covered by still green leaves. But the Haws win the feeding race. I reach out and squeeze a hip between my thumb and forefinger. It resists. The time will come when it will soften and satisfy. But not yet, and the birds know it. Hawthorn is a pretty tree that grows only a few feet tall and bears small white flowers and bright red berries. It is popular in gardens throughout North America and in parts of Europe and Australia.
The flowers and berries of the tree are used in Western herbal medicine to treat a number of cardiovascular conditions and can be used as a preventive measure against heart disease.
Country Diary: ‘eat Me,’ Says The Rose. ‘no, Eat Me,’ Says The Hawthorn
Today, cardiovascular disease is the number one killer in developed parts of the world. The cardiovascular benefits hawthorn offers and the plant’s worldwide distribution make it an excellent candidate for future heart disease drugs.
Aside from cardiovascular conditions, hawthorn is commonly used to treat anxiety and topically to treat acne and dry skin.
The main use of hawthorn is in the treatment of cardiovascular diseases. The flowers and berries contain a slurry of chemicals with well-studied cardiovascular effects. Hawthorn dilates the coronary arteries, provides arteriolar protection through antioxidant activity, regulates abnormal heart rhythms, and improves microcirculation.
All of these effects from a single plant make hawthorn an important herb for treating and preventing a number of cardiovascular diseases. Hawthorn is used to lower cholesterol and triglycerides, treat heart palpitations and other forms of arrhythmias, improve the heart’s ability to contract in congestive heart failure, and improve decreased blood flow in COPD.
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There are many references to hawthorn in older texts, and many of the indications relate to cardiovascular disease. It has historically been used to treat conditions such as tachycardia, hypertension, angina, and myocardial insufficiency. The berries have also been used as an astringent for sore throats and as a diuretic. [3].
Traditionally, the berry was mainly used, but recent findings indicate that the leaves have a stronger medicinal effect [3].
Hawthorn has also been used extensively as a source of wood and the berries as a flavoring for liqueurs. [3].
The British Pharmacopoeia of Herbs lists Crataegus as a cardiotonic, coronary vasodilator and hypotensive, specific for heart failure, myocardial insufficiency, hypertension, atherosclerosis, Bürger’s disease and paroxysmal tachycardia [13].
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In Chinese medicine, the fruit has often been used to improve digestion, stimulate circulation and treat congestion. [3].
Hawthorn belongs to the Rosaceae plant family, which includes about 91 genera and 4828 different species. The Crataegus genus includes 260 different species, some of which are used medicinally.
There is extensive hybridization of Crataegus in general, which has led to some confusion with the