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Rhamnus cathartica
Also called Purging buckthorn, Buckthorn, European Buckthorn, European Waythorn, Hart's Thorn, Carolina Buckthorn
Common buckthorn is a deciduous shrub or small tree, up to about 10 m tall, native to Europe, northwest Africa and western Asia, and invasive in parts of North America. It tolerates shade and grows readily in most soils, but its spread is best controlled rather than encouraged.
Rhamnus cathartica, the European buckthorn, common buckthorn, purging buckthorn, or just 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, and is now naturalized and classified as an invasive species in the northern United States and Canada from Saskatchewan to Nova Scotia.
The seeds and leaves are mildly poisonous for humans and most other animals, but are readily eaten by birds, who disperse the seeds in their droppings. The toxins cause stomach cramps and laxative effects that may function in seed dispersal. The chemical compounds responsible for this laxative effect are anthraquinone and emodin. The species name cathartica and the common name purging buckthorn refer to this effect.
In 1994, R. cathartica was implicated in the outbreak of an idiopathic neurological disease in horses, although no causative agent was officially identified. In trials where rodents were fed the leaves and stems of R. cathartica, glycogen metabolism became abnormal and glycogen deposits formed in the cytoplasm of liver cells. Abnormalities in glycogen metabolism lead to diabetes in humans.
Rhamnus cathartica is shade-tolerant, moderately fast-growing and short-lived. It is a food plant of the brimstone butterfly, Gonepteryx rhamni. The sulphur-yellow males are indicative of the presence of this species or of its alternative host, Frangula alnus.
The bark and fruit of Rhamnus cathartica were used as a purgative in traditional medicine, but is generally no longer used for this purpose on account of the fruit's violent action and potentially dangerous effects on the body. It also appeared to be routinely used as a purgative in some monastic settings, as was clear from the latrine pits of the Benedictine Abbey at St Albans excavated in the 1920s, where great numbers of buckthorn seeds were found mixed up with the fragments of cloth used by the monks as lavatory paper.
Mediterranean Buckthorn · Rhamnus integrifolia · Gesho · Buckthorn
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Rhamnus cathartica 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.
