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Purple Buckthorn
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Purple Buckthorn
ative Photo: Krishan Lal
Common name: Purple Buckthorn • Hindi: Gaunta, Juhish, Kao thalihana, Luhish, Luish
Botanical name: Rhamnus purpurea    Family: Rhamnaceae (Ber family)

Purple Buckthorn is small deciduous unarmed tree, with young branches minutely velvety or hairless, old branches purplish. Leaves are 5-15 x 2.5-10 cm, membranous, ovate-elliptic or elliptic-lanceolate, finally toothed, pointed to long-pointed. Leaf nerves are bearded at the axils, 6-10 pairs of prominent lateral nerves. Leaf-stalks are 1-1.5 cm long. Flowers are borne in clusters of 2-5 flowers in leaf axils. Flowers are 5-merous, green about 5 mm across, velvety, flower-stalks 6-7 mm long, enlarged in fruit upto 9 mm. Sepals are about 2 mm long, velvety outside, keeled inside, hypanthium equalling the sepals. Petals are absent. Fruit is 6-8 mm long, round to obovoid 3-lobed, 2-4 seeded. Seed is heart-shaped with distinct groove about 5 x 3 mm, black. Purple Buckthorn is found in the Himalayas, in Pakistan, Kashmir, N. Punjab) Kumaon and Nepal. at altitudes of 2700-3000 m. Flowering: April-June.

Identification credit: Krishan Lal
Photographed in Sirmaur Distt, Himachal Pradesh.
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