Our next illustration is derived from the Hawthorn, Whitethorn, or May (Cratægus oxycantha), a plant familiar to every one, from its being so extensively used for hedgerows; its strength, closeness of growth, and spiny character, admirably adapting it to the purpose. The wood is very hard, and will take a high polish; the generic name, Cratægus, from a Greek word signifying strength, being an allusion to this characteristic of the plant. Its use as a hedgerow plant in England dates, according to Sowerby, from the time of the Romans, and of this there can be but little doubt, as its most common name—hawthorn—is, literally, the hedge-thorn, from the Saxon word hage. The second name—white-thorn—has been given to it in contradistinction to the black-thorn (Prunus spinosa), a somewhat similar, and, in a wild state, almost equally common plant; the
Hawthorn.
stems of the latter being very dark in colour, while in the hawthorn or white-thorn they are comparatively light. The third name, May, has obvious reference to the time of flowering. The leaves of the plant are exceedingly varied in form, affording a great choice for the selection of the ornamentist; some being very simple in character, while others are deeply cut, and very rich and beautiful in outline. A permanent variety may be occasionally met with, in which the leaves, instead of being of the ordinary deep and bluish green, are in addition irregularly blotched with varying and intermingling tones of yellow. The flowers also of the hawthorn are subject to considerable variation in colour: the typical state is a pure milky white; but owing to the nature of the soil in which the plant is found, the blossoms may occasionally be seen varying from a pale pink to almost crimson. The berries, also, though generally of a deep crimson colour, are sometimes of an intensely golden yellow. An old writer, Culpepper, in his “British Herbal,” a treatise partly astrological and partly medicinal, having first stated that the plant is under the dominion of Mars, thus defines the medicinal properties of the hawthorn:—“The seeds in the berries, beaten to powder, being drank in wine, are held singular good against the dropsy. The seed, cleared from the down, bruised and boiled in wine, and drank, is good for inward tormenting pains. If cloths and sponges be wet in the distilled water, and applied to any place wherein thorns and splinters, or the like, do abide in the flesh, it will notably draw them forth. And thus you see the thorn gives a medicine for its own pricking, and so doth almost everything else.”
Though to a certain extent foreign to our subject, we may perhaps be permitted to say that, to the naturalist, as well as to the botanist and the designer of ornamental art, the tree possesses considerable attractions, the berries being the favourite fruit of many of our birds, and the foliage being sometimes completely stripped by the larvæ of various butterflies and moths, such as the small Ermine, the Brimstone moth, and many others; while among the poets, Chaucer, Milton, Shakspeare, Wordsworth, Goldsmith, Bampfylde, and Tennyson, have all found in it a source of beauty and inspiration. It has also been one of the favourite plants of the ornamentists, occurring very commonly in the works of the Middle Ages. It would be both tedious and unnecessary to give anything like an exhaustive catalogue of its use in past art: as good examples out of many, we would merely cite its occurrence in a finial in the Lady Chapel, Exeter; as a stone-diaper alternating with oak, at Lincoln; in two fine spandrels, and a beautiful capital, very full and rich in its wreathing, in the Chapter-house, Southwell. Other examples occur in the cathedrals at Ely, Wells, and Winchester. Wherever met with in ornamental art, the leaves and berries are the parts selected: to the best of our knowledge the flowers have never, in any instance, been introduced, no doubt from the fact of the minuteness and delicacy of each individual blossom, and its habit of growing in clusters, which, though extremely beautiful in nature, are, from their intricacy of detail, unsuited to the purposes of the ornamentist. Similarly, though the plant in its natural growth is often exceedingly spiny, it is, in ornamental art, represented as almost or entirely without this characteristic feature, as there would be a great practical difficulty, in any kind of relief-work at least, in the satisfactory introduction of forms so minute and fragile, yet requiring so high a relief. Drawings of hawthorn will be found in P. F. 68; T. N. O. 52.
The Herb-Robert (Geranium Robertianum) is one of the numerous family of cranesbills, so called from a supposed resemblance between the form of the fruit and the bill of that bird, a resemblance also indicated in the generic name, Geranium, derived
Herb-Robert.
from the Greek geranos, a crane. The herb-robert is one of the most abundantly distributed plants of the genus, being met with throughout the whole of Britain and in many other parts of the world, growing upon all kinds of soils, and flourishing equally well upon hedge-banks, waste ground, and old walls. Owing to the foliage turning a brilliant crimson in autumn, the plant becomes very striking and conspicuous as the year advances, a peculiarity which will greatly aid its identification by those of our readers who are not acquainted with it. The flowers are of a delicate pink colour, though they may occasionally be met with of a pure white: this variety grows abundantly near Nutfield, in Surrey, for instance. The whole of the cranesbill family will well repay the attention and study of the ornamentist, the dove’s-foot cranesbill (G. molle), and the blue meadow cranesbill (G. pratense), being especially suited to the requirements of the designer. The latter is a very striking plant, and when once seen cannot well be mistaken, each flower being almost two inches in diameter, of a deep purple blue, and veined with lines of reddish purple: the leaves also are very deeply cut, and of a highly ornamental character. An illustration of the ornamental treatment of the herb-robert may be seen in an elaborate specimen of embroidery, last-century work, in the South Kensington Museum; while drawings of the natural plant can be referred to in T. N. O. 38; V. W. 412; F. L. vol. i. 52; P. F. 34.
Holly (Ilex aquifolium). This plant, from its association with winter, should be one of those familiar to the student of ornamental art. Drawings of it may be found in S. B. 184; W. H. H., Plate A, Fig. 4; P. F. 27; G. O. 95. The holly is indigenous to most parts of Europe. Its influence may be traced in the names of several places, as for example Holmwood, near Dorking; the holly by old writers being also termed Holm and Hulver. Though ordinarily met with as a hedgerow shrub, it will, if allowed to grow, attain to no inconsiderable height—often thirty to forty feet; while a particularly fine specimen at Claremont, in Surrey, is a little over eighty feet high, and has a trunk six feet in circumference. The growth is very slow, the timber close-grained and hard, the annual layers of woody fibre being exceedingly compact. This fineness of grain, its whiteness and its beauty when polished, render it of great service in carving and inlay work. It has also been extensively used in the place of box for wood-engraving, and for the blocks used for engraving the patterns of calicoes and wall-papers. It would no doubt be still more extensively used than it is did not its rarity render it so costly, as, though holly bushes are plentiful enough, the owner of a fine tree is generally loath to have it cut down. The chief use of the holly is in the formation of hedges, as its formidable spines, evergreen foliage, its slight attraction for insects, and closeness of growth, are all valuable recommendations; we often thus meet with it in old-fashioned gardens. “Is there under heaven a more glorious and refreshing object of the kind than an impregnable hedge, of 160 feet in length, 7 feet high, and 5 in diameter, which I can show in my poor gardens at any time of the year, glittering with its armed and varnished leaves? It mocks at the rudest assaults of the weather, beasts, or hedge-breakers.” This hedge, the pride of John Evelyn’s garden, did not prove so impregnable to the hedge-breaker as its owner fondly thought, since one of the great amusements of the Czar Peter, during his stay with Evelyn, was to trundle a wheelbarrow through it, to the ultimate ruin of the hedge and the no small sorrow of its hospitable owner.