by Susan Allen, Herbalist and Founder of The Hawthorn Tree
Twenty-two years ago in August of 2002, I carefully placed the last tulip bulb in the courtyard at CRMC in Cheyenne, Wyoming. My excitement was over the moon as I was to be married a week later and move to Colorado. The courtyard project was to be my last of several landscaping projects in Cheyenne before I permanently hung up my landscaping shoes with hopes of heading to bustling Northern Colorado and a less dirty profession. After spending the better part of the late 80’s to the early 2000’s in horticulture, I was ready to walk away from the grueling heat. The crowning jewels in that project were Hawthorn Trees nestled up against the window looking into the cafeteria. I had long been enthralled with Hawthorn Trees for their beauty, lore, legend, spiritual significance and history in herbal medicine. Planting Hawthorn Trees at the hospital seemed like a fitting choice.
It is estimated that Hawthorn Trees (Crataegus spp.) have been around for approximately 140-170 million years and are native in North America, Europe, northern Africa and parts of Asia. While thought to have roughly 200 different species, Hawthorns have been one of the greatest mysteries in the botany world. Hawthorns belong to the Rosaceae (Rose) family but are hard to identify due to naturally occurring and some intended hybridization with distantly related species, making some say that there are no true species of Hawthorns at all.
Hawthorns have been used in landscapes for protecting castles, due to their prominent thorns, creating hedge rows, providing food for wildlife and as specimen trees. Crataegus crus-galli or Thornless Cockspur Hawthorn Trees like the ones at the hospital have lovely, delicate white flowers, glossy green leaves that turn a purplish-red orange in the fall and prominent red berries. A fascinating aspect of the Toba Hawthorn, Crataegus x mordenensis ‘Toba’, is the golden trunk made up of smaller stems intertwined to form the main trunk.
Toba Hawthorn tree trunk, Lion’s Park – Cheyenne, Wyoming
Specimen Hawthorn trees are beautiful to behold and can vary in size, structure and blooms that range from white to deep pink with white centers. But most of these Hawthorns were intentionally bred for a specific aesthetic outcome and not necessarily for medicinal use. If you’ve ever come across a native or naturalized Hawthorn tree, you would most likely find a less than perfect specimen that is windswept, gnarled and sometimes hanging on for dear life due to significant drought.
Not all Hawthorns have been studied for their medicinal value which is why most herbalists use native or naturalized species like Crataegus monogyna, Crataegus laevigata and Crataegus oxyacantha and not species that have been purposefully bred for flower color, shape and lack of thorns such as the Crataegus crus-galli.
While the leaves and flowers are commonly used in herbal medicine, the main star is the berry also known as “haws.” Hawthorn berries have been used in herbal cardiovascular formulas since the early Greco-Roman period and they peaked in popularity during the 1800’s in treatments for high blood pressure, chest pain, artery deficiency and even heart failure. To this day, Hawthorn berries are commonly used to assist with cardiac function, blood flow, and lowering blood pressure.
Hawthorn leaves and flowers are commonly added to formulas containing hawthorn berries. While the smell of hawthorn flowers can be a little off-putting they help calm and nourish the body which can help ease tension and stress and ultimately benefit the cardiovascular system.
Hawthorn trees have a long history of legends, lores and for providing protection, cleansing, inviting love and increasing fertility. At the same time, it was considered bad luck to bring hawthorn flowers into the house. Many Christians believe that Jesus’ Crown of Thorns was made from a Hawthorn Tree. Between the 2nd and 6th centuries, Ogham was developed as a Gaelic written set of symbols designed to communicate through cryptic messaging. Much of the Ogham alphabet centered around 20 sacred trees formed through different configurations of vertical lines called “stems” and horizontal or vertical slashes called “twigs.” One of the sacred trees is a Hawthorn which is represented in Ogham by one vertical “stem” and one left horizontal “twig.” This Ogham symbol is the base for our beloved Hawthorn Tree logo which is adorned with herbs. 
Ogham symbol for Hawthorn Tree
As I left the courtyard on that day some 20 years ago, I never imagined I would return home to Cheyenne much less open a business during the pandemic, but life happens. After a divorce, working in several office jobs and contracting West Nile Virus while farming in Windsor, CO, coming home to Cheyenne was just what my soul needed. Over the past 30 years, I have left and returned to plant professions like horticulture and urban agriculture. The prospect of working as an herbalist inspired me to go back to herbalism school in 2019.
In the fall of 2019, I had set my sights on the building downtown and began to make plans to open the herbal apothecary. Apothecary is an old term meaning “apotheca” or “storehouse” where people used to compound herb and spice remedies which morphed into today’s modern pharmacies. It is important to note that herbalists of that time were highly respected in the community and not people practicing voodoo or witchcraft. Back in the day there were no pharmaceutical drugs and people used only plants for healing.
When trying to come up with a name for the store I spent hours writing and saying several iterations and combinations of plant and herbal names out loud. One day, I recalled my fondness for Hawthorn trees and knew it was meant to be the name of the store. One common misunderstanding is that Hawthorn has an “e” at the end. It does not. Hawthorne with an “e” is Nathanial Hawthorne, the famous author who wrote the Scarlet Letter. E has jokingly become our scarlet letter. Now if we could just convince spellcheck!
The intention of creating The Hawthorn Tree was born out of my own recovery journey back to health and back home to Cheyenne. During some of those dark days, I spent lots of time, energy and money searching for answers to feel better. I read book after book, visited websites, listened to calming music, meditated and bathed in copious amounts of epsom salts just to feel somewhat normal. I visited almost every practitioner I could find up and down the front range and some providers were a waste of time and other practitioners were a Godsend. I do want to note that working with my primary care doctor was an important and necessary piece of the puzzle. If you are suffering from a medical condition, don’t discount all of Western Medicine. I am of the belief that western and alternative medicine modalities can work together nicely. There are some really good doctors out there.
Elements of the Hawthorn Tree were taken out of my healing playbook that included eating really good food, cutting out gluten and dairy as much as possible, meditation and of course, working with herbs. I wanted to share this with the community and thought “what would it be like if we could create a healing space in Cheyenne, Wyoming?” 
Hawthorn Tree Building 2019
I wanted to create a spot to take a mini-vacation from life where people could relax and renew themselves with really good, healthy, made-from-scratch drinks, food and of course a peaceful environment. The plants in the upper windows and the smells which are a culmination of freshly baked goods, food, teas, coffee, herbs and essential oils have helped add to the scene. One of the comments we hear the most often is how wonderful it smells in the store.
Hawthorn Tree Building 2024
Like the intertwined trunk of the Toba Hawthorn tree, we sincerely hope we have created a local hang-out for Cheyenne. We have an amazing dedicated staff who love talking to our customers. Each and every staff member is equally invested in the success of The Hawthorn Trees and their hard work and dedication shows through our food, drinks and herbal combinations made with love. Our customer support throughout the past four years has been amazing and helps make that certain magical chemistry only found at the Hawthorn Tree.
Thank you, Cheyenne, for embracing us and we sincerely hope we can be here to serve you for many years to come.
*These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA and are not meant to treat cure or diagnose any disease or medical condition. If you have a medical condition, please seek the advice of a medical practitioner.
Yale University. Hawthorn | Yale Nature Walk. (2016, March 2). https://naturewalk.yale.edu/trees/rosaceae/cratageus/hawthorn-48#:~:text=Origin%2C%20history%2C%20and%20uses:,America%20for%20a%20long%20time.
Langellier, R. (2024, June 4). Should the hawthorn be saved?. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2024/05/hawthorns-american-botany-species-conservation/678366/
Hawthorn. Mount Sinai Health System. (n.d.). https://www.mountsinai.org/health-library/herb/hawthorn#:~:text=Medicinal%20Uses%20and%20Indications,circulation%2C%20and%20lowers%20blood%20pressure.
Zhang, J., Chai, X., Zhao, F., Hou, G., & Meng, Q. (2022, September 15). Food applications and potential health benefits of Hawthorn. Foods (Basel, Switzerland). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9498108/
