Rhamnus cathartica L.
Eng.: Common buckthorn, purging buckthorn. Spa.: Espino cerval. Fre.: Nerprun officinal, nerprun purgatif. Ara.: Cafina, çafira, al-harcha. Tam.: Anerfeds, anefeds.
Shrub or small tree, deciduous and slightly spiny, up to 8(10) m in height, very ramose. In many specimens, with a well defined trunk, arborescent, with brown-blackish, rugose or fissured bark. Branches opposite, with blackish-brown, smooth bark. Branchlets reddish-brown, often ending in spines. Leaves (2-7 × 1-4 cm) opposite or subopposite in young branchlets; in the rest of the plant, they usually grow in small groups, sometimes alternate, ovate, obovate or ovate-lanceolate, sometimes suborbicular, finishing in an acute or broadly rounded tip, ± attenuated at the base, with the margin irregularly crenate-dentate, with 2-3 pairs of almost parallel veins, glabrous and intense green on the upper side, sometimes pubescent and slightly lighter on the underside. Petiole well developed, pubescent, with herbaceous stipules, promptly caducous. Inflorescences in axillary cymes, numerous and dense, often obscuring the part of the branchlet on which they are borne. Flowers greenish-yellowish, hermaphrodite, unisexual or polygamous, pedicellate. Calyx tubular-campanulate, with 4 lanceolate sepals. Petals 4, very small, inconspicuous. Fruit a drupe, 6-8 mm in diameter, at first green, then reddish and finally black. Seeds 2-4, with a groove on the inside.
Flowering:
April to July.
Fruiting:
August to September.
Habitat:
Forests, thickets, rivers and streams margins, usually in mountainous areas where it is cooler and wetter. In subhumid to humid bioclimate, on mesomediterranean and supramediterranean floors.
Distribution:
Cooler and wetter countries of central-western Palearctic. In North Africa it grows localised in Morocco, in the cedar forests of NW Middle Atlas (especially between Ifrane and Aïn Leuh) and in Algeria, in the eastern Tellian Atlas (Djurdjura Massif, Jebel Tababort and Refaa —Aures—).
Conservation status:
Rare but widely distributed species, not considered threatened. Currently, it has not been assessed at a global level in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. In Algeria it is included in the List of protected non cultivated flora (Executive Decree 12-03 on 4-Jan-2012).