Azores buckthorn
Frangula azorica
Family · Rhamnaceae · Poisonous
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This plant, or one that resembles it, is dangerous. Identifying is not authorising: no app has the authority to tell you that you may eat or touch a plant.
Emergency
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The most photographed Azorean shrub that was missing from this guide until today, with over ten thousand records. Large leaves with strongly parallel veins and berries going from green to red to black in the same cluster.
Oak woods · Streams and ditches · Uplands
Also known asAzorean buckthorn
How to tell it
A thornless shrub or small tree with large alternate leaves, oval and glossy, with eight to twelve pairs of very straight parallel veins, the genus's mark. Discreet green flowers at the axils. Green, red and black berries at once on the same branch. Range: endemic to the Azores.
What it is confused with
Alder buckthorn
Frangula alnus
They are very close and share the parallel veins and tricolour berries. Geography separates them: alder buckthorn is mainland, this exists only in the Azores. Both are strong purgatives.
What it is for
None
Like mainland buckthorn it contains anthraquinones and is a violent purgative: the berries cause vomiting and severe cramps and are never eaten. It is a protected and declining species in the Azores.
The law says
A species protected under the Habitats Directive. Do not cut or collect it.
Where it occurs
Each square is an area with recorded observations of this plant. The lighter background is the set of areas where any of the entries has been observed, and serves as a reference. Note what this is not: it is not where the plant lives, it is where people record it, so trails and towns always look fuller than the mountains. Data from GBIF.
Sources
Community
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