Plantae > Tracheophyta > Magnoliopsida > Fagales > Betulaceae > Alnus > Alnus cordata

Alnus cordata (Italian alder)

Synonyms:

Wikipedia Abstract

Alnus cordata (Italian alder) is a tree or shrub species belonging to the family of Betulaceae and native to southern Apennine Mountains (Campania, Basilicata and Calabria, mainly on western mountain sides) and north-eastern mountains of Corsica. It has been introduced in Sicily and Sardinia and more recently in Central-North Italy, other European countries (France, Belgium, Spain, Azores, United Kingdom) and extra-European countries (Chile, New Zealand), where it has become naturalised. Alnus cordata has gained The Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.
View Wikipedia Record: Alnus cordata

Infraspecies

Alnus cordata cordata
Alnus cordata neapolitana

Attributes

Allergen Potential [1]  High
Flower Type [2]  Monoecious
Leaf Type [2]  Deciduous
Lifespan [3]  Perennial
Pollinators [2]  Wind
Structure [2]  Tree
Usage [2]  An excellent windbreak for maritime areas; Trees 5 years old from seed have reached 4 metres in height and are showing no signs of wind-shaping in a very exposed site in Cornwall; This is an excellent pioneer species for re-establishing woodlands on disused farmland, difficult sites etc. Its fast rate of growth means that it quickly provides sheltered conditions to allow more permanent woodland trees to become established. In addition, bacteria on the roots fix atmospheric nitrogen - whilst this enables the tree to grow well in quite poor soils it also makes some of this nitrogen available to other plants growing nearby. Alder trees also have a heavy leaf canopy and when the leaves fall in the autumn they help to build up the humus content of the soil. Alder seedlings do not compete well in shady woodland conditions and so this species gradually dies out as the other trees become established;
Height [2]  82 feet (25 m)
Width [2]  26 feet (8 m)
View Plants For A Future Record : Alnus cordata

Protected Areas

Predators

Consumers

Parasitized by 
Melampsoridium betulinum (Birch Rust)[5]
Melampsoridium hiratsukanum[5]

External References

USDA Plant Profile

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1Derived from Allergy-Free Gardening OPALS™, Thomas Leo Ogren (2000)
♦ 2Plants For A Future licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
♦ 3USDA Plants Database, U. S. Department of Agriculture
♦ 4Biological Records Centre Database of Insects and their Food Plants
♦ 5Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0