NORSEY WOOD TREES

BLACKTHORN or SLOE - Prunus spinosa. Blackthorn is a shrub or tree growing to 6 m. , which generally sends up suckers, to produce a thicket. The black branches grow in many directions and produce modified branches as woody thorns, which produce both flower buds and leaves. The leaves are alternate, small and serrated and broadly lance- shaped. Blackthorn is found growing wild all over the British isles, and throughout Europe except in the far northern areas. At the edge of forests and in hedges, blackthorn forms a dense, and at the time of flowering, beautiful growth

Spiny branches of the same tree. Many of the This Blackthorn is growing along the edge of the branches were encrusted with lichens. wood close to the millennium tree nursery at 7.11.2013 TQ 69092 96082. 7.11.2013

Flowers of the same tree. 20.4.2006 Leaves & fruit (Sloe) 3.09.2015 The white flowers with 5-petals nearly always open before the foliage. They are produced in large The fruits are drupes and are erect, numbers in March ors April. Only one flower is round and with a bluish bloom and produced from each flower bud. Flowers are up to 13mm in diameter. They produced on both the short shoots generally in large contain tannin giving them an numbers, and also on long shoots where the flower astringent taste. The stones are buds are produced one on each side of a leaf bud. round,sometimes ellipsoidal and usually somewhat compressed. Sloes are still used for making sloe gin,