I seem to have been posting lots of flowers and trees recently. it’s not a conscious policy: just the influence of spring.
The title is a pun of a very weak sort: this is hawthorn, also known as may. Presumably because that’s when it flowers. My mother says they used to call it ‘bread and cheese’ when she was growing up in the country, because they used to pick and eat the young leaves.
It’s one of the great plants of the English countryside: one of the main hedging species, because it’s fast growing and fairly animal-proof, but it also grows into dense, wiry tough little thorn trees. The shape of them gives them real personality in the winter.
And of course, in spring, they have this marvellous blossom — usually white, but you sometimes see pink trees as well — and in autumn, they produce red ‘haws’ (berries). The famous ‘holy thorn’ at Glastonbury, which flowers twice a year, in spring and in the middle of winter, and is supposedly grown from the staff of Joseph of Aramathea, is a hawthorn.