Hawthorn Berries Or Flowers – The beautiful hawthorn, with its leaves that look like mini oak leaves and its spiky branches, produces abundant flowers (white or pink) which later produce red berries. Crataegus oxycantha and C. monogyna are the two species most commonly used medicinally, and they produce dense clusters of white flowers and red edible berries that resemble small crabapples. As a member of the apple family, this makes sense!
Hawthorn is primarily known and used as a fantastic tonic for the cardiovascular system. A safe, gentle, effective herbal remedy, this herb is used to generally strengthen the heart muscle, lower blood pressure (by relaxing the nervous system and opening coronary circulation), normalize heart rhythm, act as an antioxidant to reduce and prevent arthrosclerosis (build-up of plaque in the arteries) and weakening of the arteries and veins, to reduce blood cholesterol levels (especially LDL) and to increase circulation to the extremities. Many of these uses were born out of clinical studies, where some of hawthorn’s active compounds, mainly flavonoids and oligomeric procyanidins, strengthened heart muscle contractions, increased the amount of blood pumped with each contraction, and promoted a steady, rhythmic heartbeat. the heart. in study participants.
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Hawthorn Berries Or Flowers
In addition to being a medicine for the heart, hawthorn also has a calming effect on the nervous system, is used as a gentle diuretic, increases the flow of fluid through the kidneys and as a tonic for the lungs. It is used for allergy-related reactions such as sinusitis, bronchitis and asthmatic conditions, for symptoms of attention deficit in adults and children, for insomnia, indigestion and upset stomach.
Hawthorn — Wildness Within
Hawthorn is also used for emotional pain related to the heart such as grief and heartbreak to help protect and support the body and especially the heart and lungs which can be affected during times of grief and loss.
Hawthorn berries can be hulled (boiled) to make a tea, using 1-3 teaspoons of berries per 12ml of water and steeping for 15-20 minutes. The leaf and flower can be steeped in hot water for 15 minutes to make a mild tea. And combinations of berries and leaves and flower can be extracted in alcohol and water, or vegetable glycerin and taken as a tincture or glycerite. The berries are often made into syrups and solid extracts, which is a delicious and easy way to take this wonderful herb.
Tinctures for healthy skin from the inside out? Teas? Essential oils? When and why can you pick these different… Harvesting hawthorn berries is new to me this year. They are sweet and mild if you get them at the right time, and in years past I tasted them too early in the fall. This year the Washington hawthorn was sweet and mild in late October. But by then, the single-seeded hawthorns have started to rot, so next year I’ll be looking for those in mid-October.
I owe some credit to Josh Fecteau’s recent post on hawthorns for inspiring me to try hawthorn berries again. As Josh points out, there are many species of hawthorn, perhaps 50 in New England. And, in all of North America, perhaps a thousand species, according to George Symonds (from his wonderful book The Book of Tree Identification: A New Method for Practical Tree Identification and Recognition
Hawthorn Berries, Leaf & Flower
, my favorite ID tree learning guide). Fortunately, you shouldn’t be able to identify specific species. You just need to know it’s a hawthorn, because all hawthorns have edible berries. HOWEVER, like apple seeds, hawthorn seeds contain cyanide and should not be eaten. Don’t panic; just spit out the seeds.
Why bother with hawthorn? They are beautiful, interesting and delicious wild foods with known health benefits. Some people use the berries to make hawthorn jelly, but I have yet to try this. The berries, leaves and flowers can be used to make a tea. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to see how I make hawthorn berry extract.
I will describe two types here, as an example of the general characteristics. That should help you recognize a hawthorn when you see one, but ie
If you are not sure that you have hawthorn when foraging, please check with additional sources until you are sure, before eating the berries.
Are Hawthorn Berries Edible?
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 later turn sweet. By October 31st they were sweet and maybe a little over the top. Each berry has 3-5 seeds.
The leaves are lobed and toothed, as you can see in my photo above. Many other species of hawthorn have similar leaves. The tree is heavily armed with long thorns, up to about 3 inches in length. However, with reasonable caution, you can easily pick the berries, which tend to hang away from the branch. Later in the season it is even easier after many leaves have fallen and are no longer obscuring the thorns.
Also called common hawthorn, this is a European native that escaped cultivation and naturalized in North America. It is sometimes labeled as an invasive plant, but I don’t find it very often, and when I do, there isn’t much of it in one area. It may be invasive in other parts of the country, but it doesn’t seem to be particularly aggressive here. Like Washington hawthorn, single-seeded hawthorn grows as a shrub or small tree, bearing clusters of white blossoms in late spring. The oval red berries ripen slightly earlier (than Washington hawthorn) in fall and contain one seed (hence the name). The toothed leaves are more deeply lobed than those of Washington hawthorn, but the spines are much smaller, only about 1/2 inch to one inch in length.
Hawthorns are common in the forest floor here in Massachusetts, but they are stunted specimens that don’t fruit well. It’s too shady in the forest. To find hawthorns loaded with fruit, look in sunny spots, such as scrubby fields and thickets, at the edges of pastures and along streams. They are often planted as ornamentals, so if your friend has one and doesn’t mind picking some berries, you have an easy foraging experience at your fingertips.
Hawthorn Drawing Images, Stock Photos & Vectors
This is my first experience using 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 canning jar about 3/4 full of berries, covered them with 80 clear vodka and sealed the jar. I’m not sure how long it will take to extract enough flavor from the berries, so I’ll be checking it daily. I know other extracts (like vanilla extract) take weeks, so that’s what I’m expecting here. Here is a beautiful fruit that appears in Lebanon around the month of August; in North America there are apparently more than 800 varieties of this tree (aubépine in French) and yet I have never seen anyone eat the fruit! The hawthorn tree produces beautiful white flowers around May; a few months later they turn into pretty reddish berries. The tree can live more than 400 years.
It is an excellent remedy for treating heart problems such as high blood pressure, heart palpitations, angina, anxiety and poor circulation in the legs. It has been used in herbal medicine for thousands of years.
Besides being eaten as is, it is also dried in the sun and drunk as a tea with other herbs in winter. Jam is also made in the fall, before the birds eat it all!
I am Joumana Accad and I was born and raised in Beirut. I finished high school in France and moved to the United States in 1979. I am a mother of two grown children and a former teacher, pastry chef, caterer and translator. Taste of Beirut started as a blog in 2009 and its main purpose was to share my beloved Lebanese heritage with the world through recipes, anecdotes and cultural observations. Written by Ariane Lang, BSc, MBA and SaVanna Shoemaker, MS, RDN, LD – Medically reviewed by Kathy W. Warwick, RD, CDE, Nutrition – Updated December 13, 2021
Anthurium Flower, Hawthorn Berries. Composition Of Purple, Orange And White Flowers. Stock Image
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For hundreds of years, people have used hawthorn berries as an herbal remedy for digestive problems, heart problems and high blood pressure. In fact, the berry has been a key part of traditional Chinese medicine since at least 659 AD.
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Hawthorn Cordial Recipe: Hawthorn For The Heart
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