Prunus spinosa/ blackthorn

 

Prunus means plum and the genus includes plants like blackthorn, plums, damsons and other stone fruits like nectarines and peaches. 

Blackthorn is one of the first plants to blossom in spring yet its sloes survive well into winter. 

When winter comes in earnest to fulfil
His yearly task at bleak Novembers close,
And stops the plough and hides the fields in snows;
When frost locks up the streams in chill delay
And mellows on the hedge the purple sloes …”.

John Clare, The Shepherd’s Calendar (1827)

Clare and his fellow agricultural workers apparently planted miles of blackthorn as part of the nineteenth century field enclosure programme, begun in the previous century. 

Being unremarkable when not covered in blossom or sloes it is better to find it while in bloom when it is easy to see.

I find this hardy plant enjoys the sun and discover it on the edge of meadows or fields.

The etymology of 'sloe' eventually connects to a proto Indo European root: sleiə- "blue, bluish, blue-black". They are called endrino in Spain, which also means blue black. The Croatian šljiva means ‘plum’ as does Russian sliva. 

There is also a connection to 'livid' via Latin 'lividus' meaning a bluish color, black-and-blue. Livid with rage is connected to the idea of being purple with anger.

In Southern Norway they are sometimes called Krigerplommer - Warrior’s Plums

A friend in the north of England lives in Slaithwaite (pron. Slawit), which I read much later is said to mean ‘Sloe Clearing’.

I tasted sloe gin for the first time in the summer. It was unlike gin, more like a sweet almondy liqueur. Almonds are also in the genus prunus. The Italian drink argnolino, made with sloes -'bacche'- and diluted pure alcohol. In Spain, especially Navarre and the Basque country, Patxaran is made by soaking sloes along with a few coffee beans and a cinnamon pod in anisette for several months.  

Sloe gin mixed with apricot brandy and lime juice makes a Charlie Chaplin, an apparently sweet but tasty drink that I am inclined to try.

Sloe Gin by Seamus Heaney

The clear weather of juniper

darkened into winter.

She fed gin to sloes

and sealed the glass container.

When I unscrewed it

I smelled the disturbed

tart stillness of a bush

rising through the pantry.

When I poured it

it had a cutting edge

and flamed

like Betelgeuse.

I drink to you

in smoke-mirled, blue-black

polished sloes, bitter

and dependable.

The species is spinosa, the spiny one. I have been nursing two small, sore wounds on my finger from picking sloes again for gin this week. The Devil was said to prick his followers with a blackthorn but anyone who has gathered sloes without gloves is liable to come away pierced.  The plant has thorns longer & thicker than your average needle but easily as sharp.

 I heard recently of someone whose wound from blackthorn turned nastily septic and yesterday of someone who lost an eye to blackthorn while out riding. The thorns are covered with a bacteria which can cause blood poisoning. Despite its mundane appearance for most of the year, it is a plant that commands respect. Do not delay treatment of injuries caused by it.  

There is a saying "many slones, many groans" implying that if the sloe harvest is bounteous (as it is this year) the following year will be full of sickness...

But blackthorn has apparently medicinal uses too.  I have read twice that an old remedy for bronchitis was to boil the peeled bark of blackthorn and drink it.  On the theme of drinks, blackthorn leaves were used to adulterate Chinese tea in the nineteenth century. The practice was even legalised and the tea sold as "English".

  

Blackthorn makes a robust and fast growing hedge, also excellent for wildlife, birds being well-protected among the thorns.  Similarly good are hawthorn, gorse, holly, crab apple and dogwood.

The name probably comes from the bark which can turn nearly black with age but given the thorns I rarely get near enough to see. 

The knocking stick used by Parliament's usher, Black Rod is apparently made from blackthorn. If a witch intended to lay a curse she used a blackthorn rod with thorns on the end.  

Walking sticks and tool handles are all characteristic uses of the hard wood which is supposed to burn well and at a high temperature. Perhaps this is one reason why it was apparently used as fuel in the execution pyres of witches.

It is shrub well-suited to the winter.  I have picked sloes from their thorns in a high meadow fringed by forest in a windy, gathering dark when it is easy to see why this plant is associated with witches, the cailleach, the veiled old woman of winter carrying her blackthorn staff.