Tree of the month: February 2024 - Gorse and Broom

Gorse and Broom are both members of the pea family. These bushes can survive and spread quickly on poor soils aided, as with all members of the pea family, by their ability to fix nitrogen in the soil. Growing 2-3 metres high and forming dense thickets if left, they are important parts of a mosaic of different ecosystems but, if not managed, can spread to invade other valuable habitats. On Parkwood Springs we have an important inner city heathland, mixed stands of woodland, meadow and grassland. To maintain a balance we control the spread of Gorse and Broom through our conservation sessions. Volunteers are always welcome to join us doing this or other conservation work.

The glorious flowers of Gorse and Broom provide a long-lasting source of pollen for many bees and other insects. The flowers are typical of the pea family- a top ‘standard petal’, two ‘wings’ and two petals fused to make the ‘keel’ below. When a bee lands on the keel its weight opens the flower. The stamens (male parts) and the stigma (female), which have been coiled inside the closed flowers, spring open. The stamens dust pollen on the bee and the stigma picks up pollen carried by the bee from a different flower, so enabling cross pollination.

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Value for wildlife:
As well as Gorse flowers providing pollen for insects the Gorse Shieldbug can be found feeding on the bushes. The dense thickets of prickly, tough evergreen growth provide great cover for small mammals and many small birds. Birds like Long-tailed Tit, Stonechat, Whinchat, Linnet and Dartford Warbler will all nest in Gorse. The Long tailed Tit builds a stunning, intricate nest of four materials - moss, spider-egg cocoons/webs, lichen and feathers. The leaves of the moss act as hooks and the spider silk as loops to form a ‘velcro’ effect which holds the small nest together and allows it to expand as the 8-12 eggs hatch and the young grow. The lichen acts as camouflage and up to 2,500 feathers are gathered to line the nest.

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Human uses of gorse:
Gorse burns fiercely when dry and was much used to heat homes as well as bread ovens where its speed of burning and the fact that it leaves little ash were important qualities. In some counties limits were imposed on gorse gathering. Edward Hulme, in the 1905 ‘Familiar Wild Flowers’ writes: “few things throw out a fiercer heat. Anyone at all familiar with country life will have seen the furze faggots being cut on the heath, (one year in three)… while its upper shoots being bruised with a mallet form a valuable fodder for cattle and horses”. Highly nutritious, recent research for the Scottish Government found Gorse to have 17% and broom 21% protein As it can be toxic for humans in quantity. it would need processing to make it possible as a future human food. The flammable nature of Gorse also makes it a fire hazard on Heathland. It is thought that fire increases the germination of gorse seeds.

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Further uses: The fragrant, coconutscented flowers can be used to make wine, sauces, steeped to flavour tea or be added to salads. They have also been used to colour cheese and butter. The flowers can be used as a yellow or green dye while the dye from the bark is dark green. Bach flower remedies use Gorse to treat anxiety and increase confidence.

The dense wood, light-weight and durable though hard to work, is used for walking sticks, craft-work, and furniture. Gorse branches were once used for chimney-sweeping.

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Symbols and myths of Gorse:
A saying, repeated to me as a child and in existence at least from medieval times goes “When gorse is out of bloom, kissing is out of fashion”. A wise saying because, of course, you can always find a gorse flower out throughout the year, if you look hard enough. Another saying drawing on the ever-present nature of the blooms was “while the gorse is in flower, Britain will not be conquered”. The rich gold of the flowers meant it symbolised wealth (“where there’s gorse there’s silver”) and its prolific flowering also meant it was associated with fertilitya sprig of Gorse was commonly placed in every bride’s bouquet and a ritual gorse torch was carried round cattle to encourage successful breeding.

Gorse spines. Gorse was sometimes planted near cottages where the spiky leaves helped to secure washing laid out over the bushes to dry. The spiny nature of the leaves help in the reduction of water loss- one reason why Gorse survives so well in dry soils.

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The Gorse in literature:
The characteristics of Gorse have led to it being used often in both poetry and prose. Cowper refers to “the prickly gorse…shapeless and deformed and dangerous to the touch”, while Samuel Taylor Coleridge in “Fears in Solitude” writes, as he meditated on a hill, how he was brought back to the present by the “fruit-like perfume of the golden furze”. In Wuthering Heights Heathcliff is described as “an arid wilderness of furze”.

Thomas Hardy, in Return of the Native, describes the local people working hard in a “heathy, furzy, briary wilderness”.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, in “Lessons from the Gorse” notes:
“Mountain gorses, ever golden,
Cankered not the whole year long!
Do ye teach us to be strong, Howsoever pricked and holden
Like your thorny blooms, and so Trodden on by rain and snow,
Up the hillside of this life, as bleak as where ye grow?
Mountain blossoms, shining blossoms,
Do ye teach us to be glad
When no summer can be had?”

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Uses of Broom: The name Broom (sometimes also called Besom) reflects its main use. Fronds were tied together to make brooms. Culpepper, 17th century botanist and herbalist, wrote: “To spend time in writing a description hereof is altogether needless, it being so generally used by all the good housewives almost throughout the land to sweep their houses with”. Also used for basket making it was  used for thatching if better materials weren’t available. Spreading and growing rapidly, and burning well, Broom is being researched as a potential biofuel.

The Symbolism of Broom: In the  Bible, Broom is the only shelter for Elijah in the desert. It also became a  symbol of the Plantagenets, part of the Great Seal of Richard 1st. It appears in the stained glass in Westminster in the Chapel of Henry 7th. In the earliest Welsh prose stories comprising ‘The Mabinogion’ Broom, along with Oak and Meadowsweet are the flowers from which the wizards Math and Gwydion fashioned the beautiful, beguiling Welsh Goddess Blodeuwedd.

Further uses: The tips of the shoots were one plant form used to create bitterness in beer. The flowers, smelling  of vanilla, can be used raw or pickled and yield green and yellow dyes. Broom was extensively used medicinally but it contains sparteine which can cause gastric problems and its toxicity, to animals and humans, means it is used  much less now.

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