Hawthorn (Crataegus oxyacantha)


Updated 5 January 2024

Other botanical names

  • Crataegus monogyna

Common names

  • Cheese Tree, May Blossom, White Thorn

Common origins

  • Europe

Botanical classification

  • Kingdom: Plantae 
  • Order: Rosales 
  • Family: Rosaceae 
  • Genus: Crataegus

Components

  • Flavonoids: heterosides including hyperoside derivatives, vitexin and rutoside; quercetin 
  • Crataegin, oyacanthin
  • Trimethylamine (responsible for fishy odour)
  • Aromatic amines: tyramine
  • Minerals: including manganese 
  • Essential oil: traces

Parts used

  • Leaves, fruits (berries) and dried flowers

Organoleptic properties

  • Aroma: delicate, fruity
  • Flavour: pleasant, sweet, slightly fruity

Properties

  • Cardiotonic, strengthens the heart muscle and improves coronary circulation 
  • Regulates heart rhythm 
  • Reduces palpitations and fast heartbeats
  • Muscle relaxant on smooth muscles
  • Vasodilator 
  • Hypotensive 
  • Hypertensive  
  • Mild diuretic
  •  Sedative 
  • Mild hypnotic  
  • Antioxidant 
  •  Astringent
  • Antispasmodic

Indications

To be taken from the first symptoms. Effective after prolonged treatment.

Caution. This medicine may help relieve mild to moderate heart problems, but only a doctor can diagnose and cure your heart problem.

Precautions / Contraindications

  • No contraindications at physiological doses.
  • Side effects may include gastrointestinal disturbances, weakness and skin rashes.
  • It is contraindicated during pregnancy and lactation.

Interactions

  • Possible interactions with other medicines. Consult your doctor.

How to use / Current dose

  • Infusion of dried flowers: 4 tablespoons per litre, infuse for 10 to 15 minutes, 2 cups a day.
  • Fresh berries or flowers in alcohol: fill a jar with the plant and cover with 40° alcohol, macerate for 6 weeks, 30 to 40 drops 3 times a day for 1 month, then 20 drops twice a day for up to 3 months for hypertension, insomnia, heart tonic, hyperactivity; and a few drops in water for stage fright.

Cooking

Hawthorn berries contain starch, sugars and fats, making them an excellent source of nutrition. Soak the berries in water to soften them, then remove the stones. The pulp can be mixed with flour and used in all sorts of bread and cake recipes, jams and chutneys, or even as a juice. It can be frozen, dried and ground into a powder for easy storage and later added to cakes, smoothies, breakfast cereals, certain dishes and soups.

Find out more

The hard, slightly pink wood gives a beautiful polish that is prized by wood turners and for making walking sticks. The same wood was sought after by bakers as it gives off a lot of heat when it produces ash.
In arboriculture, hawthorn is a possible rootstock for apple, quince, medlar and azerolier. Densely branching from the lower parts of the trunk, it has been planted in often impenetrable hedges to mark off plots of land. It is visited by more than 150 insects and birds love its stems.


Additional information

Habitat and botanical description

There are 200 species of Crataegus, the most common of which are Crataegus monogyna, the single-stemmed hawthorn, and Crataegus laevigata, the double-stemmed hawthorn. Hawthorn is a shrub that lives for an average of 700 years, with very dense leaves of three or five lobes and fruits that always contain a single stone. Crataegus monogyna has single flowers and in May the shrub is covered with an abundance of sweet-smelling white flowers in small clusters of 3 to 5 white flowers with 5 rounded petals and numerous pink stamens. It grows slowly, flowering for the first time after 6 years.

Harvest time

The flowers are picked in May, in the bud, just before they open. It is a fragile crop, very sensitive to heat.
The cenelles are harvested in October-November after the first frosts.

Mythology / History / Anecdotes and traditional virtues

Crataegus comes from the Greek 'Kratos', meaning strength, due to the hardness of its wood. Hawthorn is associated with many traditions and magic. Hawthorn was one of the 13 sacred trees for the Celtic druids. The Greeks and Romans believed it to increase fertility and bring good luck to brides and grooms. It is associated with the Scottish goddess Olwen, who gave birth to the Milky Way by walking through the empty universe and scattering her white petals in her wake. It is also associated with the crown of Christ, said to have been made from its branches, and with the Virgin Mary because of the purity of its flowers. It is also the focus of superstition. It was unlucky to cut down a hawthorn tree, which was thought to shelter fairies. Although its flowers were used as garlands at Beltane, which celebrated sensuality, sexuality and fertility, and later at Marian festivals, it was considered fatal to wear them indoors. Botanists later discovered that one of its chemical molecules, thrimethylamine, is one of the first to be produced when plants and animal flesh decompose.
In the French countryside, it was used to ward off evil spells and vampires, and was thought to protect newborn babies and sick children. It was also said to have storm-fighting powers, as lightning could not strike hawthorn. An eminent herbalist, Paul-Victor Fournier, went so far as to explain this belief by saying that "it could be that the shrub discharges electricity through its thorns, like lightning through its points".