Hybridises with :

• Cherry Plum (Prunus cerasifera) Trees to produce Prunus × simmleri (which has no common name).
• Wild Plum (Prunus domestica) Trees to produce Prunus × fruticans (which also has no common name).

Distinguishing Feature : The marble-sized, rock-hard, bitter, steely-blue-bloomed blackish berries in later autumn. The scratches on hands and arms inflicted whilst trying to pick them.

Not to be confused with: Buckthorn or Sea-Buckthorn [shrubs or trees with similar names].

Some similarities to: Bullace otherwise known as Damson (Prunus domestica subsp. institia), but that has not got long thorns, and the fruit (damson) is both larger and softer than are sloes.

The flowers emerge before the leaves, in late March, two weeks after Cherry Plum and a month before Hawthorn. The black berries which appear in September have a steely blue bloom that is removed on handling.

The berries are far too bitter (and hard!) to eat, and are best left in a bottle of gin for a year with a little sugar to taste, then removed before drinking. Bletted berries make for a better sloe gin, that is, it is best not to pick them until after the first frosts (although, with warming Winters, this might be never). If there is no natural frost, bletting can be performed by cycling them alternately in a freezer and refridgerator for a fortnight before pricking the sloes and pickling them in gin. Remove and discard the berries before drinking, they are too bitter, but can be used to make a (gin tasting) jam afterwards.

The Blackthorn thicket is almost impenetrable and is used as hedging especially around the lanes backed by farmers fields (it is a little untidy for garden hedges).

Both a blue and a permanent red dye can be obtained from the berries and were used to dye wool and as an indelible ink for writing.

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