Blackthorn Blossom...

11 April 2011

For Macro Monday this week I have a series of photographs that I took of the delicate white blossom  swathing the elegant thorny dark barked Blackthorn...

For Christmas Neil bought me a Sigma 70-300mm lens for my new DSLR camera...

I tried it out once and found that virtually none of the photos came out without being very blurry.  I have diabetes and have a bit of handshake and this was more noticeable using this lens.  I do have a tripod but for the type of snapping I like to do it isn't really for me...

So I decided it was time after all these months to give this lens a fair chance...  

So I took it out for a walk...

I have always loved this beautiful blossom.  I like that it comes out before the leaves and the thorny twigs are covered in a mass of stunning white blossom.  

In Autumn the sloes can be picked to make sloe gin a rather enjoyable beverage on a cold winter night.

Once (when I was a child) I picked some blackthorn to bring into the house and my mother shooed me and my blackthorn out of the door before we had even crossed the threshold...  Considered to be very unlucky to bring Blackthorn blossom into the house... odd really, as the wood is often used for walking sticks...  

Blackthorn has very long elegant and sharp thorns...  which if you get scratched by them the wound will often go septic...  it was used in past times tipped with poison as a way of getting rid of enemies...

I have a couple of books about trees and the mythology surrounding them.  One of my favourite is The Wisdom of Trees by Jane Gifford.  The other I refer to often is Irish Trees - Myths, Legends & Folklore by Niall Mac Coitir.  Both of these are packed with fascinating information about the Blackthorn.  The Blackthorn like the Hawthorn is considered to be a fairy tree...  It is a tree that has connotations with the practice of black magic.  

The blossom is small and delicate ...  with gorgeous long stamens...

The beautiful blossom has often been used to describe feminine beauty...

"My love is like the flower on the dark blackthorn"