Hedge Trees and Bushes | Ferns | Recipes
HEDGE TREES AND BUSHES
Brambles (Rubus fruticosus sens) have many variations in the seeds. The word sens means ‘in the wide sense’, because of its many forms. Each variation is like a micro species, adapted to special conditions and cloning itself. Michael Viney says there are at least 70 sorts of blackberry. Here in Fingal, there is one that produces relatively few fruits with big fat globes, which are ripe in early September. A later variety has many tiny globes, which are sourer.
Fuchsia is flowering now. The word Fuschia means Fox, after the 16th-century German herbalist who named it. The original stock from which Irish fuchsia hedges came was planted in Kerry in the 19th century, according to Michael Viney. It was a new cultivar coming from Riccarton in Scotland in 1830. It grows very well from a slip.
Gorse (Ulex europaeus) is in bloom. This plant was first used by the Normans as hedging in the 12th century. There is also a gorse uniquely Irish, found originally near Strangford Lough at Mount Stewart, the demesne of the Marquis of Londonderry. It had soft spines, very good for animal fodder. It was christened Ulex downiensis. However today we know it is only a cultivar of the common furze, but you can see descendants of the original at the National Botanic Gardens in Dublin.
Crab Apple (Malus sylvestris) is often found in old hedges. It consists of two subspecies; the true crab apple has hairless or nearly hairless leaves and the fruit is small and very sour. The other subspecies, that is, the cultivated apple and its wild relatives, came from southeast Europe and southwest Asia and has leaves which are downy underneath and hairy stalks and twigs.
Hazel (Corylus avellana) has nuts in clusters of one to four. The grey squirrels will likely eat them all before you get to them! Hazel is seen as a symbol of a happy marriage because the nuts are united in pairs. In Fingal, there are very few of them north of Swords now but old people remember picking nuts from a few isolated ones. Back to top
FERNS
Ferns are a non-flowering plant. They exist first as a gametophyte and survive in moist soil. Then it becomes a fern or sporophyte which can cope with a dry period. They reproduce not by seeds but by spores on the underside of the leaf. The spores can only disperse if the leaves are vertical. The leaves need to catch the light and be horizontal. The fern compromise with two leaf types and positions, the horizontal leaves have no spores and catch the light and there are other narrower vertical leaves for the spores.
The Hard Fern (Blechnum spicant) can be found in many ditches in the shade of the hedge. Back to top
RECIPES
Bramble Drop-scones
Ingredients: 225 g flour, ½tsp salt, 1 tsp baking powder, 25 g castor sugar, 2 eggs, 1 tbsp golden syrup 225 ml milk, 175 g blackberries, 225 ml milk.
- Mix all dry ingredients and then add the sugar.
- Add the beaten eggs and milk and warmed syrup.
- Make a well in the flour and pour in berries.
- Mix to a batter.
- Put a tablespoon of it on a hot, well-greased frying pan and cook until golden on both sides.
- Serve hot with butter. Back to top
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