Golden Gorse

Blocks of golden yellow decorate the landscape; added, like thick strokes of oil paint, to a winter canvas of more muted tones. This unexpected rush of colour is brought about by the flowering of gorse, a familiar spiny shrub of heath, common and waste ground and a great landscape plant. The common gorse flowers during late winter and early spring, bringing a welcome splash of colour and a suggestion that spring is on the way.

Gorse is a plant with a long and sustained association with Man. The name itself is said to derive from the Anglo Saxon word ‘gorst’ meaning ‘waste’, perhaps reflecting an association with the poor soils on which it grows. However, it is with another Anglo Saxon word that many know the plant today. This is ‘furze’ (‘fyrs’ in the Anglo Saxon) which highlights the use of the plant for firewood. ‘Furze’ is one of just a handful of Anglo Saxon words still in use in their original form. The use of gorse for fuel was once a widespread practice, not just domestically but also for industrial processes such as for firing West Country china clay ovens or for the baking of bread.

Gorse had a number of other uses, one of the most important of which was the provision of winter fodder for livestock. In some areas the gorse was managed like a crop specifically for this purpose, with a preference shown for the softer female form of Western Gorse (an uncommon plant in Norfolk, found only in scattered parts of the north of the county). The sharp spines, evolved to deter browsing animals, had to be crushed in a mill before being fed to livestock. Many of the mills at which the crushing took place were established specifically for this purpose. One, perhaps rather unexpected, use for gorse was in gold mining. The Romans deployed a technique called ground sluicing, in which water was used to wash gold-rich silt through a series of filter beds. The Roman engineers found that gold dust was trapped more effectively by gorse than by the other filters that they tried. Mind you, handling the filters cannot have been much fun!

There is something about gorse that makes me think that is a rather fine plant. Perhaps it is the soft vanilla smell that comes off its flowers, or that it adds a strong structural component to the open heaths and waste ground on which it grows. Whatever the reason, I am in good company in my liking of the plant. The great Swedish naturalist Linnaeus is reputed to have fallen to his knees and thanked God when he first saw gorse on an English common. A fine plant indeed!