Tree Appreciation Tuesday - Of myths and legends

In these parts do trees grow, around which myths and legends abound.  Many myths, legends,  and much speculation has grown up around a Hawthorne which grows in a stunted way.  The best information about this tree I found can be read on The Garden Trust Blog.

Crataegus monogyna 'Biflora' flowers in the Spring and then during the winter.  I would not say that the winter flowering is showy, to me it is as if it is just starting its Spring flowering early. 

Glastonbury Parish Church with The Glastonbury Thorn

I have read that neither cuttings nor seeds can be used to propagate the tree, and that it has to be grafted.

Flowers in January as well as haws from last year's flowers

Lichen and moss encrusted criss cross of twigs

I first wrote about  a similar Hawthorne two years ago, and for this week's Tree Appreciation Tuesday, I took pictures last week of the Hawthorne outside St John the Baptist, the COE Parish Church at Glastonbury. 

This particular tree just represents for me, the mystic and mystery which can build up regarding either one particular tree or a tree type or maybe a tree in a particular place.  It could be that a tree has particular meeting for just one person, a group of people, a tribe, the fact that trees enter the psyche of people is not surprising. The Glastonbury Thorn has been written about, and stories spun around it.  This is quite ironic given that almost all the specimens of 'The Glastonbury Thorn' are not likely to be more than a hundred years old.

Whether in ancient times or now, starting up stories which appeal, or entertain, has been of value to religious places, business and commerce.  From the Glastonbury Abbey webpage:

The Holy Thorn

Many believe that the Holy Thorn tree that can be seen in the grounds originated from the staff of Joseph of Arimathea.

By the 1530s, not long before the Dissolution of the Monasteries, three thorn trees grew on Wearyall Hill (sometimes known as Wirral Hill) about 1km south-west of Glastonbury. The trees were very unusual because they flowered twice - once in the spring around Easter, and a second time at Christmas.

Not surprisingly, they were seen as holy thorns. In the Civil Wars of the 17th century Puritan soldiers cut down the only remaining thorn because they saw it as an object of superstition. However, local people had kept cuttings, and it is from these that the thorn now growing in the abbey grounds is believed to descend. It continues to flower around Easter and again at Christmas.

The custom of sending a budded branch of a Glastonbury thorn to the Queen at Christmas seems to have begun in the early 17th century, when a branch was sent to Queen Anne, King James I's consort. A spray is still cut from the thorn in St John's Church yard and sent to the sovereign each Christmas by the Vicar and Mayor of Glastonbury.

The thorn featured on British 12p and 13p Christmas postage stamps in 1986.