Description: Dense, thorny, deciduous, upright, much-branched, spreading, thicket-forming shrub, spreading by suckering and occasionally by layering of prostrate stems at the base.

Height: 1-4m
Diameter: 5-20cm

Leaves: Alternate, oval, broadest above the middle, dull green, toothed (crenately serrate), smooth or sometimes hairy beneath.

Shoots: Spiny, lateral branchlets usually bearing a terminal spine.

Bark: Dark brown or blackish, young twigs downy.

Flowers: White, 10-15mm, five-petalled with many (c20) stamens, single style, solitary, but dense on branches, appearing before the leaves (March - May). Pollination mainly by bees.

Fruit: Sloes are bluish black, bloomy, globular drupe, 10-15mm with green astringent flesh.

Habitat: Woodland, scrub and hedgerows, often forming thickets, to 1600m.

Range: Throughout Europe except Faeroes, Iceland and Spitsbergen, extending east to western Siberia. In Britain, throughout, except for some of the northern isles.

Sloes are too harsh-tasting to eat, but can be made into a home-made wine. More commonly, they are used to flavour Sloe Gin. Among the commonest European shrub in woods, hedgerows and invading waste land.

Information: Blamey, Grey-Wilson, 1989, Lawrence, 1985

Source: Weasdale Nurseries, Newbiggin-on-Lune, Cumbria.

Purchased: 1993.03.22, by us, ten at 18-24".

Planted: 1993.04.03, West edge of european strip. Existing mature specimens along House/Cottage border, Barn/Field wall and in European strip all suckering freely. Several suckers transplanted to south edge of enclosed strip south of field at end of April 1993.

Progress: in fact, many of our old specimens are in decline, bearing very little fruit but suckering invasively into areas where they are not welcome. Although they are being retained in hedges where their spiny stock-proof quality is useful, they are now being removed from a number of other locations around the property. This is being done fairly gradually, to allow other shrubs to grow up providing comparable shelter, and perhaps rather more food, for wildlife.

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