22 August 2005
Rubus chamaemorus
Yes there really are cloudberrys on the Berwyns - not going to let on exactly where - there are not many at all - no fruit this year either:
"The late William Condry wrote in his book 'The Natural History of Wales': "Quite a folklore has grown up about cloudberry, dating back to the early days of the Berwyn village of Llanrhaiadr-ym-Mochnant whose church is dedicated to the Celtic saint Dogfan. His annual stipend, tradition says, was a quart of Berwyn berries. In other words he often got nothing. As a parish historian reported last century: 'So scarce is the fruit in some years that a quart of the berries cannot be had throughout the range. The writer, in the year 1869, after a most diligent search was only able to secure some half-dozen berries.'
"A later cloudberry tradition was the claim that anyone who could provide the rector of Llanrhaiadr with a quart of Berwyn berries would be excused payment of his church rates and tithes for one year. There is also the story of Sir Watkin Williams Wyn who offered five shillings (then a fair sum) for a pot of the berries. He also sent a man to get a root of it off Berwyn and had it planted in his garden at Llangedwyn. But there it refused to grow."
As far as I know there are just three places in Wales where this remnant from the ice age survives - Y Berwyn, Plynlimon and a "moss" near Wrexham
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