Tea, tarts, tartan and tragedy

A rare excursion to South Pembrokeshire where the beaches are sandy and  populous.  (Rocky and deserted is my personal preference.)

Amidst the scrubby dunes my eye was caught by these tiny, beautiful, black berries (not blackberries!) which are in fact rose hips, the fruit of the white Burnet Rose,  Rosa pimpinellifolia, which I've only rarely seen on the north coast. It grows close to the ground and can easily be overlooked.

from the Web:
"The (almost black) hips can be eaten raw or cooked. They are small but sweet and pleasant tasting. Some care has to be taken when eating this fruit, like all rose hips they contain a layer of irritant hairs around the seeds, the source of the 'itching powder' once beloved by naughty boys children. The seed is a good source of vitamin E, it can be ground into a powder and mixed with flour or added to other foods as a supplement after careful removal of the seed hairs. A pleasant tasting fruity-flavoured tea is made from the fruits, it is very high in vitamin C, a richer source than R. canina [Dog Rose], which as was discovered in 1934 (just in time for World War 2, and their important deployment in rose hip syrup) has four times as much as blackcurrant and twenty times as much as oranges. In the middle-ages rose hips were a popular tart filling for banquets, the necessary preparation is fairly complex and if this species were used the black colour might be a little off putting. They were also used in this period in a sauce to accompany meat, 'sawse sarzyne/saracen sauce'."


"The plant is associated with tartan - the small black hips grown each autumn produce juice which provides a peachy dye if used on its own, and a beautiful purple shade when mixed with alum."


"On the small islands of the Steep and Flat Holms, Sully and Barry, in the Bristol Channel, the blossoming of the burnet rose out of its proper season was regarded as an omen of shipwreck and disaster."

The flower was the original white rose of Scotland, symbol of the Jacobite rebellion. In the words of Hugh MacDiarmid:

The rose of all the world is not for me.
I want for my part
Only the little white rose of Scotland
That smells sharp and sweet—and breaks the heart.

Quite a history for a small, prickly, ground-hugging plant.