It's vitamin sea

It is an acquired taste, warns John Wright, but sea buckthorn juice is full of goodness

There is an arresting hypothesis that the post-glacial forests of oak, elm, lime, and pine were preceded by a wall-to-wall lowland carpet of sea buckthorn.

As the larger trees took hold, the pioneering sea buckthorn was pushed to the edges and, eventually, only the eastern edge, where it earned its reputation as an east-coast seashore shrub. It is still common in its final redoubt but has been reintroduced elsewhere for its talent in stabilizing wandering sand dunes. It was regrettably overqualified for the job, soon pestilently claiming exclusive dominium wherever it was planted.

More recently, it has been used by beneficent highway authorities as a roadside tree and it is there that you are most likely to encounter it. My favored place is along a local bypass where there are about 100 trees and where any attempt to conveniently park a car will invite the attention of the constabulary.

To avoid difficult conversations, I approach through the undergrowth from the housing estate behind the bypass bank on which the sea buckthorn grows. I am not going to tell you where this is. Find your own.

But what is a sea buckthorn? It is a large shrub (or small tree) that looks a little like a willow, with narrow, silvery leaves and generally a willowy aspect. Every year, the female trees will produce dense clusters of bright orange berries and it is these that are collected. They are sometimes ripe in late July, and in their prime from mid-August through to the end of September. After that, they can look a little faded and taste slightly vinegary.

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