RHAMNUS CATHARTICUS. THE BUCKTHORN. 
Class V. PENTANDRIA.— Order I. MONOGYNIA. 
Natural Order, RHAMNEfiE. THE BUCKTHORN TRIBE. 
Fig. (a) represents a male flower; (6) female flower; (c) a stamen; (cl) the fruit; (e) the section of a berry, showing the four cells; 
(/) the seed. 
Buckthorn is, perhaps, as well known among herbalists and rustic practitioners as any indigenous medi- 
cinal plant of Great Britain. It has been long celebrated for the cathartic qualities of its berries, which are 
gathered by the common people in some places in considerable quantities, and the juice expressed for the use 
of the apothecaries. It grows wild in hedges, groves, and thickets, flowering in May, and ripening its fruits 
in September. It is rather uncommon in the neighbourhood of London; but Dr. Milne found it in some 
lanes betwixt Plumstead and East Wickham; in a chalk-pit betwixt Gravesend and Chatham, and in copses 
above Purfleet. We have also observed it in great abundance in the hedges near Thames Ditton; and Mr. 
W. Anderson, of the Botanic Garden, Chelsea, informs us it grows plentifully about Norwood, in Surrey. 
Buckthorn is a shrub, which rises to the height of seven or eight feet, with a smooth dark-brown bark, 
and yellowish wood. The branches are alternate, or nearly opposite, spreading, and each terminating in a 
strong spine, after the first year. The leaves are simple, entire, ribbed, smooth, finely serrated, and of a 
bright green colour ; the earlier ones downy, and in tufts from the flowering buds ; those on the young 
shoots, opposite, and smooth. The flowers are small, sustained on pedicels, and stand in thick clusters on 
the extremities of the last year’s branches. They are generally of different sexes on distinct plants ; the 
fertile flowers, with the rudiments of stamens, narrow petals, and a deeply four-cleft style ; the barren ones 
with an abortive germen, and broader petals. The anthers are small, roundish, on short awl-shaped fila- 
ments, and inserted in the mouth of the four-cleft calyx, opposite to each petal. The berries, which suc- 
ceed the germen in the female flowers, are black when ripe, globular, of the size of a pea, and contain a 
green bulb, with four cells, and as many seeds, that are smooth, elliptical, convex on one side, and flattened 
on the other. By this last character they are easily known by druggists, from the fruit of the Rhamnus 
Frangula, which has only two seeds, and is supposed to be less active. 
There are two British species of Buckthorn: Common Buckthorn, already described, and Alder Buck- 
thorn, or Berry-bearing Alder, (R. Frangula.) The latter is a shrub, which like the preceding, grows to a 
considerable height, with smooth entire leaves, and flowers in May. It is destitute of thorns; and the 
berries, which ripen in July, are dark purple, each containing two large yellowish seeds. This plant for- 
merly obtained a place in the foreign dispensatories, under the name of Frangula. The inner bark, the only 
part used in medicine, when dried is a drastic purgative; emetic, when green. The berries gathered before 
they are ripe dye wool.green, and yellow; when ripe, blue-grey, blue, and green. The bark dyes yellow, 
and, with preparations of iron, black. 
The species usually cultivated, or introduced as objects of curiosity are, — the Turkey-berry buckthorn, 
(R . infectorius ;) the shining-leaved buckthorn, or common jujube, (R.. zizyphus;) the common alaternus, 
(R. Alaternus ;) the pubescent rhamnus, or Bahama-red-wood, (R. colubrinus;) the common Christ’s thorn, 
(R. Paliurus ;) the pointed-leaved buckthorn, (R. anoplia.) 
The first is a native of the south of Europe. It is frequent in rough stony places in Greece, and is re- 
garded by Dr. Sibthorp as the A vkwv, Lycium, of Dioscorides. The unripe berries are much used for 
dyeing, and are imported into England under the name of French berries. They are chiefly used for topical 
dyeing in calico printing ; but the colour which they communicate is very fugitive ; they are also used to 
give the colour to Turkey leather, or yellow morocco. This shrub is very nearly related to the R. cathar- 
ticus, but grows procumbent, not erect, and the leaves are smaller and narrower. 
The fruit of the shining-leaved buckthorn, or common jujube, is sold in the market at Canton during 
the autumn. It is about the size of an olive, of a yellowish-red colour, sweetish and clammy. In Italy and 
Spain it is served up at table, in desserts during the winter season, as a dry sweetmeat. It was formerly 
kept in the shops, under the name of jujubes, and recommended in coughs and other pulmonary complaints, 
but has now fallen into disuse in England, although in France it is still esteemed. 
The natives of Siberia use the wood of an unarmed species, the Rhamnus Erythoxylon, or Siberian 
Red-wood, to make their images, on account of its hardness and colour. According to Osbeck, the poor in 
China, where the shrub is a native, use the leaves of the R. (now Segeretia) Theezans, as a substitute for the 
genuine tea, and it is even called by them I'm. 
Paliurus Aculeatus, the Christ’ s-thorn, is a very common plant in Palestine, and is found in most 
sterile places bordering on the Mediterranean Sea. Tradition affirms that the Saviour’s Crown of thorns 
was made of the pliant branches of this spiny plant, and none could be more fitting for the brutal purpose 
to which it is said to have been applied. Hasselquist, however, is of ' opinion that a species of Zizyphus^ 
hence called Z. spina-Christi, is the true Christ’s-thorn. 
The fruit of P. aculeatus resembles a head with a broad brimmed hat on ; and the French, from its very 
singular appearance, call the tree Forte-chapeau. The seeds are sold in the herb and physic shops of Con- 
stantinople under the name of Xalle. The hakims or native doctors prescribe them in many complaints, 
and they are used also as a dye. The plant itself is one of the commonest thorns of the hedges in many 
parts of Asia, and its flexible spiny branches form fences of a most impassable kind. 
