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STRAWBERRY TREE (Arbutus unedo)
Key: Quietude
This is a small tree growing to 30ft (9m) with a short trunk often laying along the ground and with twisting branches. Its distribution is patchy but is truly native in south-west Ireland where it grows on seaward cliffs. Elsewhere in Britain it grows well in sheltered places, though is usually shrubby. The evergreen leaves are regular, toothed with a white central vein. Strawberry tree flowers in September and October with green-white heather like flowers hanging in loose clusters. The fruit takes two years to ripen, beginning as small green globes, then expanding to yellow and finally red, fleshy spheres. Ripe fruit and flowers can be seen together. The fruit is quite edible though too subtle for some tastes.
Strawberry tree has a focused and specific effect. It primarily stimulate the crown chakra increasing potential for healing and personal spiritual growth. The qualities of the imagination and inspiration are encouraged.
The mind is quietened and cleared. Strawberry tree can almost instantly reduce the levels of mental noise to the merest whisper. It is experienced as a sudden whitening or clearing of thought from the head. This is not calming as such-the emotions are not involved, simply a reduction in noticeable thought processes is allowed.
Transformation occurs through this stillness and silence. As movement and activity dictates all form, it requires a cessation of activity and movement in order to effect change. Ceasing to move allows form to become more fluid and less bound. This can create an opportunity to clear the effects of past actions, habits, and routine thought patterns.
Signature: Appearing so late in the year the soft white flowers and different stages of ripen ed fruit are like a snapshot in time-the year suspended, as thoughts are also suspended.
Comment: Seeing a mature strawberry tree in full autumn sunshine with bright red fruits, yellow orange fruit, milky bunches of flowers amid glossy deep green leaves brings to mind those Otherworldly Celtic trees who bear fruit and flowers simultaneously, or who bear all kinds (colours) of fruit, or that are alternately burning with flame and bursting into greenery. Altogether a magical tree that is just about hanging on to very small pockets of habitat throughout Europe as though the remnants of older times.
Strawberry tree is generally unhappy in northerly and easterly winds and thrives best in shelter. In and around Devon it is a common sight, though one of the largest trees I have seen is opposite Sueno’s Stone in Forres, in the far north of Scotland on the Moray Firth.