There have always been a few pink ones, tantalisingly rosy in the distance, exquisite in proximity. Hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna), also known as May, the mainstay of the rural hedgerow and the exuberant, wild lace that dominated the countryside in late spring, until money-obsessed agribusinesses ripped out the vast majority of the hedgerows and hammered the rest into stunted wedges that never got a chance to flower – it’s genetically variable when it comes to flower colour. Traditionally pure white – Housman’s “high snowdrifts in the hedge”* – but look closely and the suspicion of pink usually lurks around the outside of the petals.
This year, our local hawthorns stayed tightly in bud all during the cold, frosty and then wet weather of April and most of May. I was despairing of them opening in traditional time and thinking of renaming the shrub “June”. I found a single flower open on 21st May, but it was the end of the month before they felt safe enough to come out of hiding, and already their companion shrub, the broom, was going over. But now….. they astound, they soar, they are alive with insects….and, for whatever reason, they have emerged in all shades of pink. It’s like wading through raspberry ripple ice cream, sneezing with the outrageous amount of pollen and drowning in that pungent, not-quite-nice but not entirely nasty, scent.
What a sight to hold drunkenly in your mind’s eye, until May – or June – comes again!
*’Tis time, I think, by Wenlock Town,
The golden broom should blow;
The hawthorn, sprinkled up and down
Should charge the land with snow.
Spring will not wait the loiterer’s time
Who keeps so long away;
So others wear the broom and climb
The hedgerows heaped with may.
Oh tarnish late on Wenlock Edge,
Gold that I never see;
Lie long, high snowdrifts in the hedge
That will not shower on me.
from “A Shropshire Lad” by A.E. Housman
Comments on The Nature of the Universe 
For some odd reason everything this year seems to have more intense colours, greens more green, yellows more yellow, even the snowdrops were whiter. I suspect it is something to do with ageing, either that or a prolonged absence from the optician.
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Had the eyes seen to, but could be age right enough!
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Thanks for the confirmation. I always thought of Hawthorn blossom as white until I went Co. Clare and The Burren a few years ago in May and pink Hawthorn blossom was everywhere. Photographing local bushes recently I noticed even apparent white flowers had touches of pink. Have they been “pinking” while they waited for warmer weather? R xx
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I was wondering if it has something to do with the flowering being held back by the cold period in May…time to pink up?
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