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A common, spectacular, weedy, native shrub that lurks on all the hedgerows locally. It strays into the garden on occasion and is removed, but I tolerate it on the boundaries for
its scenterd winter flowers. Trees and Shrubs online says: "Ulex europaeus is the most widespread and familiar Ulex species, and has an interesting history of economic use. As a garden plant it rides a fine line between gloriously ornamental flowering shrub and prickly, invasive, somewhat frost-susceptible horror." The BSBI say: "It is particularly abundant and rapidly develops dense thickets in neglected ground which has previously been disturbed, such as on the banks of ditches, streams, rivers and lakes, in hedgerows beside tracks or roads, on woodland margins, in woodland clearings and around human settlements in general. U. europaeus flowers in super-abundance, the blossom crowded in spire-like clusters at the tips of the branches. The large, showy, pea flowers vary in degree of yellowness from a soft buttercup to a strong orange, all of them heavily scented of coconut oil. There is a legend, loved and often repeated by the Victorians (but very possibly apocryphal), that when the famous Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus visited England in August 1736 and saw gorse flowering for the first time on some heathland, he fell down on his knees and thanked God for the beautiful display (Blunt 1971, p. 90)." |
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| 1981 | ||
