Travelling in and out of London by train the past few weeks I see bursts of white blossom all across the Hertfordshire landscape. These are Hawthorn in flower, sometimes called the May Tree or May Flower. Mostly they will be remnants of old hedgerows. 

 Such boundaries are now largely superfluous in the huge fields of arable monoculture. Those that remain are fragments not maintained except for the occasional flaying from a tractor. Various native species especially Hawthorn and Blackthorn were the main constituents of traditional agricultural hedges. They were kept in shape by periodic hedgelaying i.e stimulating regrowth by cutting part way through the stems, bending them and layering horizontally along the line of the hedge.

 Crataegus monogyna and Crataegus laevigata can be large shrubs for hedging purposes but left to their own devices they become small trees and sometimes spread by self-seeding to form thickets of scrub. Thus the May Tree illuminates the countryside and catches the sun like bright white flares exploding near and far.