Cross Spike

Buckthorn is native to Europe, North Africa, Pakistan, India, and Indonesia. The drug material is imported from wild collections in Russia. Medicinally, the ripe, dried buckthorn berries (Rhamni cathartici fructus) are used.

Buckthorn: special characteristics

Buckthorn is a shrub up to 3 m tall, bearing opposite, finely serrated leaves and thorny branches. In the leaf axils stand in umbels the small, inconspicuous, yellow-green flowers.

Furthermore, the plant has drupes about 6 mm in size, shiny black when ripe. At the top of the fruit can be seen two intersecting furrows, from which the German name of the plant is derived.

Buckthorn berries as a medicine

Buckthorn berries are about the size of peas, shiny black and spherical, or in the dried form, somewhat shriveled and the surface sunken. Often the fruits are still hanging from the thin and slightly bent fruit stalk.

Inside the berries are four compartments, each containing a hard seed.

The drug does not spread a particularly characteristic odor. The taste of buckthorn berries is sweetish at first and then turns bitter and slightly pungent.