European buckthorn

A shrub for butterflies 🦋🌳

European buckthorn (Rhamnus cathartica) is a shrub 🌳 with a compact and dense crown, featuring twisted branches that end in thorns. It grows in hedgerows and the edges of forests, but also on cliffs and riverbeds, up to 1200 meters. It is a pioneer species, suitable for consolidating rocky and dry lands.
The flowers 🌼 are inconspicuous, very small with 4 green-yellow petals. The fruits are round drupes, arranged in clusters, which turn black when ripe.
Buckthorn is a host species for certain butterflies 🦋 such as the common brimstone (Gonepterix rhamni), which lays its eggs only on its leaves. Birds enjoy its fruits and by eating them, they spread the species.
⁉️ Did you know? 😲
The fruits are toxic and were once used to make a syrup used as a purgative. The fruits and bark were used to dye fabrics yellow.
Photo AnemoneProjectors, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.