Gorse flowers and thorns, available all year long depending on climate.
Ulex europaeus: Edible Gorse or Furze Pas
Gorse has edible flowers. It also has thorns… Really bad thorns.
In August 2005 an Englishman, Dean Bowen, 32, left to walk home after many drinks at the local pub. He woke up the next day in the middle of a Gorse patch. Bowen couldn’t remember how he got there, and couldn’t find a way out of the thorny mess.
On his second day stranded in the patch he caught the attention of a passerby by using a cigarette lighter to reflect sunlight. That brought the rescue squad but they couldn’t get to him. He was surrounded, as they say, in a thorny situation. Bowen was eventually rescued by the British Royal Air Force who lifted him out by helicopter.
“I wouldn’t advise anybody to go into it [gorse bushes], you know what I mean? At first it seems fun but, before you know it, you’re like stuck,” Bowen, from Hunmanby, North Yorkshire, told the BBC after his rescue. “Whichever way I turned it seemed to be the wrong one that day.”
Bowen spent some time in the local hospital recovering from mild hypothermia and dehydration. Colin Yorke, who winched him to safety, said: “The man was in a patch of gorse brush 10-feet deep.
“We’ve no idea how he got there. He was right in the middle of the gorse. It was like he had been dropped there by a spaceship… It was certainly one of our stranger rescues.”
Gorse blossoms can make tea or wine
There is a saying: “When Gorse is out of bloom kissing is out of season.” That’s understandable since it is an evergreen that blooms year round. A spray of Gorse used to be put in bridal bouquet as an allusion to this. Pliny said Gorse was used in the collection of gold. The plant was put on stream beds to catch any gold-dust brought down by the current. It’s also been used for fuel in bakers’ ovens and in soap-making, as it contains much alkali. If the spines are crushed it is acceptable animal fodder. It has half the protein of oaks, not bad for wild fodder. Horses in particular like it especially tender young tips.
Gorse is common in western Europe and has been naturalized in Coastal Australia, New Zealand, South America and North America. In North America it is found along the Mid-Atlantic states, the west coast from California north into Canada, and Hawaii. It can also be found inland.
The only edible part for us are the flowers which have a slight coconut aroma and almond taste. They’ve been used in salads, for tea and to make a non-grape wine — recipe below. The buds can be pickled like capers. Don’t over eat them. The plant contains slightly toxic alkaloids. Soaked seeds are a flea-repellant.
Botanically known as Ulex europaeus (YEW-lex yew-row-PEE-us) Gorse is also called Furze. Ulex is Latin for some unknown ancient plant and Europaeus is of Europe. The word “gorse” comes from the Anglo -Saxon word “gorst” which is a descendant of a German word meaning barley which makes no sense at all. The word “furze” comes from the Anglo-Saxon word “fyrs” which means ‘a waste’ suggesting where it grows or the litter that accumulates around it creating a fire hazard. Gorse is on many noxious weed lists and is myrmecochoric meaning its seeds are distributed by ants.
Green Deane’s “Itemized” Plant Profile
IDENTIFICATION: Evergreen shrub to six feet, sometimes 10, forming dense and impenetrable thickets, young stems green, leaves modified into green spines, 0.4-1.4 in long, young seedlings have trifoliate leaves resembling a small clover leaf. Flowers are golden yellow, 0.4-0.8 in) long, with egg-shaped bracts and has a typical pea-flower structure. NON-EDIBLE: pod, long and dark, purplish brown, 2-3 small blackish seeds.
TIME OF YEAR: Year round if the climate agrees, heavily in spring.
ENVIRONMENT: Non-arid areas neither too hot or too cold, coasts, disturbed ground, grasslands, shrub lands, forest edges, waste places also as a hedge and in landscaping. Can grow in some shade. Makes soil poorer.
METHOD OF PREPARATION: Flowers as a trail-side nibble, or use to make tea or wine. Buds can be pickled. Do not consume a lot. Flowers have been used as a dye for Easter eggs. Flowers and roots provide a yellow dye for clothes.
Gorse Wine Recipe
* 12 cups of gorse flowers
* 1 gallon of water
* 4 cups of sugar (can substitute with honey, 3.3 pounds)
* 1 1/2 cups seedless white raisins
* 2 oranges
* 2 lemons (or 1/4 oz. citric acid)
* 2/3 cup strong tea or 8 drops grape tannin
* 2 heaping teaspoons all-purpose wine yeast
* 1 teaspoon yeast nutrient
(Optional, two ounces of ginger root)
Put the flowers into the fermenting bucket immediately. Boil half the water, half the sugar and the chopped raisins together for 1 to 2 minutes, then pour over flowers. Thinly peel the rind from the oranges and the lemons, and add to the bucket. Squeeze out the juice and add that too. Add the cold tea or the tannin and stir thoroughly. Make up to 1 gallon with cold water. When tepid add yeast and yeast nutrient, stir well and cover. Ferment for 1 week, stirring daily. After 2 or 3 days, when fermenting well, add the remaining sugar and stir to dissolve. Strain through a sieve or cloth and siphon into a gallon jug or bottle. Fill up to the neck or the jug with cool, boiled water. Rack when clear, bottle and keep for six months.
I’ve come across many literary references (e.g. Crawford “Creating a forest garden”) to gorse as a nitrogen-fixing plant, which is a very beneficial in increasing nitrogen content in the soil and potentially providing nitrogen to other nearby plants via mycorrhizal fungi networks. I would recommend including this info in this (rather excellent) gorse webpage as it can make this spiny beast of a weed a slightly more tolerable bush to have on the land. Also chopping down gorse branches and laying them around the base of a young (fruit) tree has been used to provide slow-release nitrogen as it slowly decomposes, and also deters deer/cattle etc from grazing on the young tree (ref. Mollison “Permaculture a designers’ manual). Thanks for a super site, I love learning all this stuff. Cheers, Margaret
Thank you very much for your blog. Please can you tell me how the Gorse came to Canada?Also, do you know if it has any cultural uses?
Thanks, Anna Graham
You might have missed this section in the above text which refers to cultural uses.
There is a saying: “When Gorse is out of bloom kissing is out of season.” That’s understandable since it is an evergreen that blooms year round. A spray of Gorse used to be put in bridal bouquet as an allusion to this. Pliny said Gorse was used in the collection of gold. The plant was put on stream beds to catch any gold-dust brought down by the current.
Thanks you for this info, we have become gorse enthusiasts in Rhynie, Scotland, and I have been making a butter cream from the abundant gorse flowers, by melting the gorse flowers in the butter, straining, and then whipping up with the usual icing sugar, vanilla paste, and gorse seems to like a twist of lime! We’ve also been making a gorse cordial for our Rhynie Woman events, with gorse, coconut and lime, with a bit of ginger, delish!
Does anyone know what the lowest temperature is that gorse will tolerate? Minnesota gets some lows at -28 C or so, although that is rare. Extended periods of -17C are not uncommon.
Hi
I know gorse wood chips are using in UK for smoking (smoked fish and game meat) Does anyone has any academic article published in UK on a research study on gorse wood chips?
Many Thanks,
Senn
In the Isles of Scilly we have a lot of gorse! for the last 27 years I have caught Grey Mullet and Salmon here. Cured them with 25% salt, 75% Sugar, whiskey and honey and smoked them after planning Gorse from the Island. I have also made cured Parma hams, cured for one month in brine and then smoked for one month with gorse; Fantastic. I have also made gorse wine, but can’t remember cooking or washing up after drinking it! It is traditional in Northern France to smoke Mutton with gorse. I love gorse!
Does anyone know the nutritional properties of the gorse flowers? Like vitamins, minerals, protein content etc
Does anyone know where I can buy some Gorse?
I buy it on e bay ,cheaper around November December…they settle very quick and outperform in clay soil.
Just about any place that has gorse will give it to you free! Just go to such a place. I live in Hawaii and it is a major invasive species here. It has taken over large areas of Mauna Kea, the state’s highest mountain. Sheep and goats seem to like eating it. But it has very nasty thorns and it spreads everywhere. I strongly suggest you rethink your desire to buy some of this terrible environmental plague.
Aloha,
Tom
I’m with you all the way Thom. I’m here in oregon and we are being taken over by the nasty stuff. Me and my fiance are actually clearing 22 lots taken over by gorse. It takes over beaches, backyards and newly logged timberlands, quickly spreading if left unchecked.Then there’s this: the oily plant loves fire. Gorse is highly flammable. Worse than that, it resists efforts to douse its flames.
check this out Bandon Oregon September of 1936.
Perhaps you could stick it in a decent sized pot so that you can keep it under control?
Gorse flowers are one of the Bach flower remedies discovered by Ed Bach. They do work!
Dose gorse have medicinal properties ??
What is the best way of getting rid of the beetles and small caterpillar like larvae which live in the gorse flowers? Prior to using in making gorse ice cream or gorse flower muffins?
Shake it in a larger holed sieve so the bigger flowers remain but little insects etc fall out. If you have say a mesh for dunking french fries in oil that might be about the kind of size that would work. Otherwise just enjoy the protein : )
Gorse is nothing that can be responsibly grown in a pot, as an ornamental, as a fence or in any other manner. I live in Bandon Oregon. We have burned more than once due to this uncontrollable, oily and invasive plant. We continually see people taking clippings, thinking it would be fun to start this “pretty little yellow plant” as a souvenir of their time spent in our town. It is a force of Nature to be respected and if we could rid our town of it in any environmentally responsible manner, we would do so in a heartbeat.
Hello,
in todays Guardian, there is an article which states that Gorse could feed millions of people due to it’s high protein, but it would have to be prepared first.
I thought you might be interested,
Best wishes and thanks for a great and very informative sie,
Ian
The gorse bushes that have invaded many Scottish landscapes could produce enough protein to feed millions of people, according to the leader of a Scottish government research programme.
The surprising suggestion by Prof Wendy Russell, at the University of Aberdeen, comes from research on the protein content of invasive plants that have to be doused with herbicides or burned back to keep them under control.
Gorse contains 17% protein and broom has 21% protein, she said, adding: “Gorse and broom were fed to cattle at times when crops failed in the past, so we think protein from these types of plants could be used as animal food. If protein isolates are produced in the correct way, so to be safe, they could be considered as human food in the future.”
Gorse was used on top of the banks of the rabbit warrens to keep rabbits in the warrens from the 1200s to the early 1900s.
The banks were 3 feet high, then gorse was planted on top of these banks. these enclosures were sometimes 100 acres.