Species
+

Rhamnus cathartica L.

Buckthorn, Cambron, Carolina buckthorn, Carolina buckthorn

Climate known 64 photographs
Add one to my plants Sow seed

Every figure on this page is derived from public data by a stated rule and says its source; nothing here is written by a person or a model, except the Wikipedia passage, which is quoted and marked as such. How it is made.

Summary

Rhamnus cathartica, the European buckthorn, common buckthorn, purging buckthorn, or just buckthorn, is a species of small tree in the flowering plant family Rhamnaceae. It is native to Europe, northwest Africa and western Asia, from the central British Isles south to Morocco, and east to Kyrgyzstan. It was introduced to North America as an ornamental shrub in the early 19th century or perhaps before, and is now naturalized in the northern half of the continent, and is classified as an invasive plant in several US states and in Ontario and Québec, Canada.

Text from Wikipedia, “Rhamnus cathartica”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

Family
Rhamnaceae
Described by
L.
Native to
Denmark, Finland, Great Britain +43
Wild records
137 in range· 52 open

At a glance

Warmest month
22°C
Jul, mean day; nights 14 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
850mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Jul 81 mm (CHELSA)
Light
4–36DLI
mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)
In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person
Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (June to January in the northern hemisphere). Habitat rain 850 mm a year, wettest July at 81 mm, driest April at 47 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 4 to 36 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -18.4 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).
Each sentence is one card's own one-line form, written by the same rule as the card (Its year, Rain, Light, Temperature); the note cannot say what a card does not. Months are given for the northern hemisphere (set your site in Settings to change this), and the habitat's own alongside. The cards · the figures.

Also known as Cervispina cathartica (L.) Moench; Rhamnus alpina var. hydriensis (Hacq.) Schult.; Rhamnus cadevallii Pau; Rhamnus cathartica f. cadevallii (Pau ex Cadevall) Rivas Mart.; Rhamnus cathartica f. montana (Brügger) Braun-Blanq. and 25 more.

Cultivation

Its year Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (June to January in the northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.

The rain rule reads no season: 70% of the year's rain (615 mm of 850 mm) takes 8 months, June to January. Mean temperature moves 18.0 °C between the warmest and coldest month. Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: December to July.

Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the envelope cells: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve gives a season to reverse. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain Habitat rain 850 mm a year, wettest July at 81 mm, driest April at 47 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

850 mm a year at the habitat, 615 mm of it June to January. Wettest month July at 81 mm, driest April at 47 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 554 mm to 1339 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the envelope cells. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light Open sky over the habitat: 4 to 36 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 4 to 36 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 2, the highest 90th-percentile month 39).

CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.

Warmth and air Cold floor -18.4 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is -18.4 °C, the absolute minimum -32.2 °C, about 110 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 26.8 °C. Monthly means: coldest night -3.2 °C in January (across the envelope cells -9.4 °C to 1.5 °C), warmest day 22.2 °C in July (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -18.4 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER).

NASA POWER daily minima and maxima 1981–2024 at the typical cell, lapse-corrected to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA. The cold floor is the figure named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 59 to 67% across the year (monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the envelope cells.

The figures the cards read from are in Climate below, and where they came from in Natural habitat.

Climate across the habitat

Habitat climate through the yearMean day from 3 °C in Jan to 22 °C in Jul; mean night from -3 °C in Jan to 14 °C in Jul. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 850 mm of rain a year, most in Jul. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 124 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -32.2 °C and the 99th-percentile day 26.8 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.-40°-30°-20°-10°10°20°30°frost26.8° 99th-percentile day (undated)-32.2° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0255075100125150mm rainDLI 4–36RH 59–67 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 124 habitat cells cold quarter: the three months around the coldest night extremes over 44 years at the typical cell, marked at the edge: undated DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C3 / -3–65 / -2–69 / 3–1012 / 9–1517 / 15–2020 / 17–2322 / 20–2522 / 20–2518 / 15–2014 / 9–158 / 3–104 / -1–6
Night °C-3 / -9–2-3 / -9–10 / -4–34 / 1–69 / 6–1012 / 10–1414 / 13–1614 / 12–1611 / 8–137 / 3–92 / -4–5-2 / -8–2
Rain mm72 / 31–8857 / 31–7965 / 32–10047 / 33–9666 / 41–13573 / 57–12781 / 57–13676 / 53–13577 / 50–11478 / 42–11278 / 44–10080 / 41–107
DLI5 / 4–911 / 8–1518 / 16–2328 / 26–3134 / 32–3636 / 33–3935 / 32–3829 / 27–3220 / 18–2412 / 10–166 / 4–104 / 2–7
RH %67 / 63–6965 / 61–6862 / 59–6459 / 57–6159 / 55–6160 / 56–6260 / 56–6361 / 57–6263 / 58–6464 / 62–6666 / 64–6867 / 64–70

Each figure is the median across the 124 grid cells holding the 137 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. Extremes and elevation were read at the typical cell 627:3867 (58.625, 13.375). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -32.2 °C, 1st-percentile night -18.4 °C, 99th-percentile day 26.8 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Envelope: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 124 distinct grid cells holding the 137 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 627:3867 (its coldest month's mean night nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 58.50_13.125, lapse-corrected -9 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 66 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across every in-range record's cell, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeDenmark, Finland, Great Britain, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Austria, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Hungary, Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland, France, Portugal, Spain, Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Romania, Sicilia, Yugoslavia, Belarus, Baltic States, Krym, Central European Russia, East European Russia, North European Russia, South European Russia, Ukraine, Algeria, Morocco, Altay, West Siberia, Kazakhstan, Kirgizistan, Tadzhikistan, Uzbekistan, North Caucasus, Transcaucasus, Iran, Lebanon-Syria, Turkey, Xinjiang· introduced: Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward I., Québec, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Washington, Wyoming, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Connecticut, Indiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode I., Vermont, West Virginia, Arizona, Utah, Arkansas, Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Argentina Northeast
Kew's description“shrub or tree” · “temperate”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker50.808, 11.005 · in the densest population, 87 records (64% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 137 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 52 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 337 km away. 635 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored.
The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population inside the densest 4° block of the 137 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Rhamnus catharticaRhamnus catharticaRhamnus catharticaRhamnus catharticaRhamnus catharticaRhamnus catharticaRhamnus catharticaRhamnus cathartica

Photographs: (c) Tyler Smith, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA) (2); (c) Mike B, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA); no rights reserved · CC0; (c) David Sandler, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Mitch Van Dyke, some rights reserved (CC BY) (3).

Photographs: iNaturalist and GBIF media did not answer when this page was built; what is shown came from the sources that did.

Papers naming this species

Works whose title or abstract names Rhamnus cathartica, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Climate Change: Resetting Plant-Insect Interactions
Evan H. DeLucia, Paul D. Nabity, Jorge A. Zavala, May R. Berenbaum (2012) · PLANT PHYSIOLOGY
Soybean Aphid Biology in North America
David W. Ragsdale, David J. Voegtlin, Robert J. O’Neil (2004) · Annals of the Entomological Society of America
Tree and Shrub Seedling Colonization of Old Fields in Central New York
David Gill, P. L. Marks (1991) · Ecological Monographs
Effects of Exotic Lonicera and Rhamnus on Songbird Nest Predation
Kenneth A. Schmidt, Christopher J. Whelan (1999) · Conservation Biology
Soybean Aphid Biology in North America
David W. Ragsdale, David J. Voegtlin, Robert J. O’Neil (2004) · Annals of the Entomological Society of America
Ecology and ecosystem impacts of common buckthorn (Rhamnus cathartica): a review
Kathleen S. Knight, Jessica Kurylo, Anton G. Endress, J. Ryan Stewart (2007) · Biological Invasions
In vitroscreening for the tumoricidal properties of international medicinal herbs
Elizabeth Mazzio, Karam F. A. Soliman (2008) · Phytotherapy Research
Cereal rust control in Canada
Brent McCallum, T. Fetch, J. Chong (2007) · Australian Journal of Agricultural Research
The invasive shrub European buckthorn (Rhamnus cathartica, L.) alters soil properties in Midwestern U.S. woodlands
Liam Heneghan, Farrah R. Fatemi, Lauren Umek, Kevin C. Grady (2005) · Applied Soil Ecology
An investigation of the invasive shrub European Buckthorn, Rhamnus cathartica L., near Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
O. W. Archibold, Derl Len Brooks, L. Delanoy (1997) · The Canadian Field-Naturalist

Similar habitat climate the 6 species whose habitat climate is nearest this one's: mean day and night, month by month, and rain on a log scale, in calendar order, so a habitat with the same seasons six months out is far, not near. Nothing else counts: not range, not family.

Other Rhamnus 1 in the reference

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
wcvp.distribution answered
gbif.occurrences answeredGBIF occurrence search API
climate answered
wikidata answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not askedcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive)
inat.photos.wild answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
commons nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
gbif.media did not answercarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: api.gbif.org not asked: offline re-derivation
openalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped

Every upstream is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, or refused. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 8 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.