Shorter Notice
Historic Thorn Trees in the British Isles. By Vaughan
Cornish, D.Sc. (Country Life. 8s. 6d.)
MR. CORNISH is the owner by inheritance of the Salcombe Regis Thorn, originally planted to mark a place of assembly and one of the few remaining examples of the ancient cult of the thorn tree. The author writes with much erudition, and he has collected and arranged an immense number of interesting facts regarding the origin and distribution of historic thorn trees. There is a chapter on the Glastonbury Thorn, and some pages are devoted to the less well-known Jerusalem Thorn at Paythorne on the Yorkshire border. Mr. Cornish quotes a correspondent who writes in March, 1940: " There is a tree round the back of the Buck Inn called a Jerusalem Thorn which flowers at mid- night on old Christmas Day. The people who live at the inn went out to watch it this time, and at midnight on time they could hear the buds crack and saw it flower."
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