The open plant encyclopedia
Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.
The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.
Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.
Prunus spinosa
Also called Sloe, blackthorn, Sloe, Sloe Berry, Sloe Of Europe
Prunus spinosa, the blackthorn or sloe, is a spiny deciduous shrub or small tree from the rose family, native to Europe and western Asia. It is grown mainly as a hardy hedge and for its astringent sloe fruit, which is picked after frost for preserves and gin.
Prunus spinosa, called blackthorn or sloe, is a species of flowering plant in the rose family, Rosaceae. It is native to Europe and West Asia, and has been naturalised in parts of North America.
The fruits are used to make sloe gin in Great Britain and patxaran in the Basque Country. The wood is used to make walking sticks, including the Irish shillelagh.
Like many other stone fruit with stones, the seed in the stone contains trace amounts of hydrogen cyanide.
P. spinosa is native to Europe, western Asia, and locally in northwest Africa. It is also locally naturalised in Tasmania and eastern North America.
The shrub, with its long, sharp thorns, is traditionally used in Britain and other parts of northern Europe to make a cattle-proof hedge.
Prunus adenopoda · Red stinkwood · Prunus aitchisonii · Alabama cherry · Prunus alaica · Allegheny plum · American plum · Prunus amplifolia · Almond · Desert peach · Chickasaw plum · Prunus annularis
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Prunus spinosa by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
Pet safety from the ASPCA toxic and non-toxic plant lists.
