Foraging Heart-Healthy Hawthorn

Reader Contribution by Leda Meredith
article image

Hawthorn’s bright red fruits caught my eye this past weekend when I was leading a foraging tour. Sometimes snubbed because of its mealy texture, hawthorn fruit makes spectacular liqueurs, jellies, fruit sauce, and chutney.While you’re enjoying the rosy color and gentle sweetness of this late summer and early fall fruit, you may also be getting some health benefits: hawthorn has a long history of use as an herbal medicine for the heart, especially for arrhythmia. It is useful for both high and low blood pressure, acting as a balancing tonic.

Recognizing Hawthorn

Hawthorns are small trees with leaves that are 1-2 inches long and usually lobed. The leaves can have different shapes from one tree to the next, but are always alternate with toothed margins.The lovely white to pale pink flowers look like clusters of apple or cherry blossoms and bloom in mid-spring.

Hawthorn fruits look like little apples, usually red but sometimes closer to purple. You might think you’ve found an apple or a crabapple tree…until you notice the wickedly long, stout, and sharp thorns. Those thorns are your ID clincher. Also, apples always have 5 seeds per fruit in a pentacle pattern, whereas the number of seeds in hawthorn fruit can vary from 1 to 5.

Comments (0) Join others in the discussion!
    Online Store Logo
    Need Help? Call 1-800-234-3368