Should the Hawthorn Be Saved? | Hacker News Reader

Should the Hawthorn Be Saved?

theatlantic.com

35 pointsnkurz14 comments

I have a Hawthorn. My brother-in-law, who is a landscaper, came over to show me how to prune what we thought was a flowering crab. However, on closer inspection, he exclaimed, "Wait, this a Hawthorn bush!"

It has gotten larger over time, and harder to mow around due to the thorns (spine-like protrusions which resemble small branch growths more than true thorns).

It does have one redeeming quality. Every year in early spring, for a brief but dazzling moment, it appears covered in thousands of small, white, lace-like flowers.

If I'm not mistaken, the berries can also be used to make a drink (iirc mixed with lemonade).

https://earthtoveg.com/chinese-hawthorn-candy-haw-leather/

The Chinese Hawthorn is used in a few snacks. I really like the fruit leather you can buy in Asian supermarkets. My math teacher from High School got me interested in both math and Chinese snacks, and it was really nice to see him get excited about sharing both with us. It'd probably work with American haw berries too - but the pitting would be a lot of extra work as they are smaller.

The berries are edible in many if not most species. And the tree is often used as stock to graft pears and apples. Hawthorn species in many cultures have a medicinal history as some sort of "heart tonic". Modern research seems to support its usage for treatment of cardiovascular disease[0]

[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3249900/

Country folk call them redhaws. They're good, but you have to beat the birds to them.

https://archive.is/62yWA

> With hawthorns suddenly scarce on the landscape, though, parsing out which species are real is next to impossible. “That’s the root of the problem,” Lance said. “They’re gone.”

Would population-scale (of those that can still be found) genetic sequencing help point the way to an answer? It's relatively cheap now, compared to before, and odds are will be more so.

My quick answer is yes,save the tree

Yeah the thorns on these things are bad news. A scratch to the eye fron one = blindness. Even taking one to the hand can easily result in a hospital trip.

Was just reading last night: "the thorns are "particularly toxic to the eye". Corneal scratches led to loss of vision in more than half of 132 reported incidents in Ireland (Mitchell and Rook, 1979)." From this book: https://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Edible-Weeds-Reference-Libra...

I was curious, because I was always told Hawthorns weren't poisonous, and I can't find anything more about this. The only source seems to be the book itself, I couldn't find the study, and I can't find any other sources that say Hawthorn or its thorns are poisonous.

Either way, it's probably a bad idea to get stabbed in the eye by their thorns.

For decades now The Atlantic has run articles about not bothering to save endangered species. Probably not a coincidence that it's been owned by a rich real estate developer and now Steve Jobs's widow.

The article is not about not bothering to save endangered species.

Seems like we should have common sense zoning so these individuals aren’t literally financially incentivized to expand sprawl and put out articles like this so they can continue to do so

Until we address the intersectionality of corporate interests with a primarily Indo-European framework I’m afraid we won’t see much progress on indigenous geographical agency.

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