Inspired by some chat on Facebook and a great video and article from the guys at Natural Bushcraft, we set off last weekend to find a Birch to tap. I’ve read loads over the years about the wonders of Birch sap and, seeing as the video made it look so easy, I decided now was the time to give it a go. It was a beautiful, brisk Spring day and a walk in the woods was just the tonic we both needed so we took it easy. It wasn’t a full blown mission to gather bottles-full but a first foray to at least get a taste and see what we were dealing with. After a slightly false start where the birch wood from memory actually turned out to be a beech wood (?!) we finally found a couple of likely looking specimens; strong and sturdy. We got nothing from the first one except a tantalisingly lush scent from the knife. Maybe the sap wasn’t rising here yet we thought; Central Scotland is a fair way North of Kent where the first sap had been recently reported. However, we tried its neighbour; this time making a cut much lower down. It started to flow. Excitement! Much wooping and joy. Then we tasted it. Oh! ‘Well its ehm… not nasty or anything…’. It kind of tasted of nothing much. Insipid really. Maybe a slightly bitter dryness to it but deeply disappointing. Certainly not worth all the effort strapping a bottle to a tree for 5 hours and collecting a gallon. Not to mention stressing the tree out! I suppose its something I know now and will bear in mind if I find myself in some sort of post apocalyptic survival situation.
On an infinitely more positive note, we found loads of Hazels! Wandering through the woods down by the river (not telling which one!) I spotted a yellow catkin and stopped in my tracks ‘hazel! hazel! hazel!’. My slightly calmer companion pointed out that loads of things have yellow catkins. But my enthusiasm couldn’t be dampened. ‘No no, but hazel gets them before the leaves… and look at it – its all bushy and, and, and, well, hazel looking!’. So we took lots of pics (all of which turned out to be out of focus) and having admired the little shocking pink tips of the emerging leaves, we headed home with me itching to get to my books and look it all up. Well, if you know Hazels at all, you’ll know what’s coming next. YAY!!! They are Hazel and the shocking pink tips are in fact female catkins. I cannot tell you how excited I am! Once we had spotted one we saw them everywhere and I am so looking forward to getting back there later in the year to gather my first wild hazelnuts. Recipes anyone?
, many of the anecdotes centre around Churchyards and Abbeys. It seems that, as an introduced species, they may have originally been planted in the ancient Churchyards of Britain. In fact, the snowdrops I eagerly await sight of from my back window are in an ancient churchyard. Does that bring us back to the church symbolism of purity? Well, possibly, but it is notable that many of these institutions had Physic Gardens attached to them so it does bring us round to the medicinal applications.
reports that the crushed bulbs have been used in case of frostbite. Appropriate given the time of year they appear! There is also ethnobotanical evidence that, in Bulgaria, they have been used in the treatment of poliomyelitis. It was partly this evidence which led to the isolation of the alkaloid galantamine, a drug that is now used in the treatment of the dementia of Alzheimer’s disease. Which brings us back to Hope…
