Plantae > Tracheophyta > Magnoliopsida > Rosales > Rhamnaceae > Rhamnus > Rhamnus cathartica

Rhamnus cathartica (Hart's thorn; European buckthorn; European waythorn; common buckthorn; carolina buckthorn; nerprun cathartique)

Synonyms:

Wikipedia Abstract

Rhamnus cathartica (buckthorn, common buckthorn or purging buckthorn) is a species of small tree in the flowering plant family Rhamnaceae. It is native to Europe, northwest Africa and western Asia, from the central British Isles south to Morocco, and east to Kyrgyzstan. It was introduced to North America as an ornamental shrub in the early 19th century or perhaps before, and is now naturalized in the northern half of the continent, and is classified as an invasive plant in several US states and in Ontario, Canada.
View Wikipedia Record: Rhamnus cathartica

Invasive Species

View ISSG Record: Rhamnus cathartica

Attributes

Flower Type [1]  Dioecious
Hazards [1]  The fruit is purgative but not seriously poisonous; Other parts of the plant may also be poisonous;
Janka Hardness [2]  1040 lbf (472 kgf) Soft
Leaf Type [1]  Deciduous
Lifespan [3]  Perennial
Pollinators [1]  Insects, Lepidoptera
Specific Gravity [5]  0.611
Structure [1]  Shrub
Usage [1]  A green dye is obtained from the immature fruit; Mixed with gum arabic and limewater, it makes a green pigment used in watercolour painting; Yellow, orange and brownish dyes can also be obtained; The colours are rich but fugitive; A yellow dye is obtained from the bark; It has been used to colour paper and maps; Often grown as an informal hedge, it is also amenable to trimming; Wood - hard, handsome with a marble-like grain. Used for small turnery;
Height [1]  20 feet (6 m)
Width [1]  9.84 feet (3 m)
Light Preference [4]  Mostly Sunny
Soil Acidity [4]  Neutral
Soil Fertility [4]  Intermediate
Soil Moisture [4]  Moist
View Plants For A Future Record : Rhamnus cathartica

Protected Areas

Predators

Consumers

Parasitized by 
Erysiphe friesii[8]

External References

USDA Plant Profile

NatureServe Explorer

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1Plants For A Future licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
♦ 2Wood Janka Hardness Scale/Chart J W Morlan's Unique Wood Gifts
♦ 3PLANTATT - Attributes of British and Irish Plants: Status, Size, Life History, Geography and Habitats, M. O. Hill, C. D. Preston & D. B. Roy, Biological Records Centre, NERC Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (2004)
♦ 4ECOFACT 2a Technical Annex - Ellenberg’s indicator values for British Plants, M O Hill, J O Mountford, D B Roy & R G H Bunce (1999)
♦ 5Chave J, Coomes D, Jansen S, Lewis SL, Swenson NG, Zanne AE (2009) Towards a worldwide wood economics spectrum. Ecology Letters 12: 351-366. Zanne AE, Lopez-Gonzalez G, Coomes DA, Ilic J, Jansen S, Lewis SL, Miller RB, Swenson NG, Wiemann MC, Chave J (2009) Data from: Towards a worldwide wood economics spectrum. Dryad Digital Repository.
♦ 6HOSTS - a Database of the World's Lepidopteran Hostplants Gaden S. Robinson, Phillip R. Ackery, Ian J. Kitching, George W. Beccaloni AND Luis M. Hernández
♦ 7Biological Records Centre Database of Insects and their Food Plants
♦ 8Jorrit 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.
♦ 9Ben-Dov, Y., Miller, D.R. & Gibson, G.A.P. ScaleNet 4 November 2009
♦ 10del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A., Sargatal, J., Christie, D.A. & de Juana, E. (eds.). Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona.
♦ 11Birds and berries: a study of an ecological interaction. Calton, Great Britain, Snow B.K., Snow D.W., 1988, T & AD Poyser. 268 p.
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