Rhamnus utilis
Credits
Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles
Recommended citation
'Rhamnus utilis' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.
Genus
Other taxa in genus
- Rhamnus alaternus
- Rhamnus alnifolia
- Rhamnus arguta
- Rhamnus californica
- Rhamnus cathartica
- Rhamnus costata
- Rhamnus davurica
- Rhamnus fallax
- Rhamnus frangula
- Rhamnus × hybrida
- Rhamnus imeretina
- Rhamnus infectoria
- Rhamnus japonica
- Rhamnus lanceolata
- Rhamnus pumila
- Rhamnus purshiana
- Rhamnus rupestris
- Rhamnus saxatilis
- Rhamnus tinctoria
A deciduous shrub 6 to 9 ft high; young shoots slender, glabrous, occasionally becoming spine-tipped. Leaves oblong to narrowly obovate, mostly tapered at the base, contracted at the apex to a short, slender point, shallowly and bluntly toothed, 11⁄2 to 5 in. long, 3⁄4 to 2 in. wide, veins in five to eight pairs, yellowish, glabrous except for yellowish down beneath in the vein-axils and on the veins when young; stalk 1⁄4 to 1⁄2 in. long. Flowers yellowish, 1⁄4 in. wide; petals lanceolate. Fruits black, 1⁄4 in. wide, globose-ovoid, each on a stalk 1⁄4 in. long.
Native of Central and Eastern China; long in cultivation, but sometimes confused with R. davurica, which differs in its longer leaf-stalks – often 1 in. long – whilst the leaf-blades are, on the average, shorter. Both species provide the raw material for the production of the dye known as China Green.