A Mediterranean shrub with small leaves and berries, also called buckthorn or Italian alder.
From medieval Latin, possibly derived from Arabic or Mediterranean plant names. The word appears in herbals and botanical texts dating to the Middle Ages, referring to the evergreen shrub Rhamnus alaternus.
The alatern shrub was so useful to medieval herbalists that they built an entire folk medicine tradition around it—the berries were used as a natural laxative, and the leaves were valued as a dye source, making it one of the most economically important wild plants!
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