Pix Of The Day: Sweeter Shade Than Fearful Kings
CREDIT: © Ann Bowker/Mad About Mountains
WHERE: Loughrigg, Grasmere, Cumbria, UK. WHAT: blooming hawthorn.
MAP: Loughrigg Fell. Thumbnail click pops-up larger image.

Last week Ann Bowker from Mad About Mountains walked over Loughrigg Fell in the English Lake District. She captured this image of the hawthorn bushes and the view northwards across the lake of Grasmere. The thorny shrub or tree with the formal name of Crataegus oxyacantha is the European variety with deeply lobed, shining leaves, and small, rose like fragrant flowers, and a fruit called haw.

In many parts of Britain the hawthorn is used extensively for hedges that form field boundaries. It is so lovely, with a scent heady enough to rival honeysuckle, that it is also used for standards in gardens. The American hawthorn's formal botanical name is Crataegus cordata, and it is similar but the leaves are much less lobed.

Gives not the hawthorn-bush a sweeter shade
To shepherds looking on their silly sheep,
Than doth a rich embroider'd canopy
To kings that fear their subjects' treachery?
William Shakespeare - King Henry VI, Part 3: Act 2 Scene 5.

On the horizon, just right of center, are the summit rocks known variously as 'The Lion and the Lamb' or 'The Howitzer', because of their appearance from the road going over Dunmail Raise, the low pass to the right. It was from there that we once had to make a descent in pitch darkness because one of the party ambles at a snail's pace when among the hills: being nighted on a rough path is certainly not sweet shade!

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