Gorse

Appears in

By Roger Phillips

Published 1986

  • About

Ulex europaeus Gorse is generally distributed throughout the British Isles, although it is often planted in north Scotland and, rather infrequently, in west Ireland. It occurs in rough, grassy places and edges of heaths, usually on the lighter and less calcareous soils, and flowers from March to June.

The English name derives from the Anglo-Saxon ‘gorst’, a waste, a reference to the open moorland on which it is found. Gorse was burned at Midsummer and blazing branches were carried round the herb to bring health to the cows for the coming year. Tradition asserts that gorse brews one of the best wines, while in earlier times the flowers were used to flavour whisky.