Rhamnus procumbens - Creeping Buckthorn

Creeping Buckthorn is a small, climbing shrub with prostrate thornless branches. Branchlets are slender, with numerous warts. Stipules are needle- shaped, 3-4 mm, persistent. Leaf-stalks are very short, 1-2 mm, minutely velvety. Leaf blade is yellow-green on the underside, deep green above, shiny, elliptic to lanceshaped, 1.5-2.5 × 0.8-1.5 cm, thinly leathery. Lateral veins are 3-4 pairs, prominent on the underside, impressed above. Leaf base is broadly wedge-shaped, margin slightly curled, saw-toothed, with pointed tip. Flowers are polygamous, 5-merous, 1-3-clustered in axils of small leaflike bracts, bracts narrowly elliptic, up to 1 cm. Flower-stalks are 5-6 mm. Bisexual flowers are broadly bell-shaped. Sepals are broadly ovate- triangular, about 2 mm, sparsely downy, with distinct midvein above, tip pointed. Petals are absent. Stamens are about 1 mm. Disk is thin, disk-shaped. Ovary is 3-celled, style 3-lobed or cleft to half. Fruit is round, 5 mm in diameter, green, black at maturity, with persistent sepal at base, with 3 or sometimes 2 stones. Fruiting stalk is 7-8 mm long. Creeping Buckthorn is found in the Himalayas, from Punjab to Bhutan, at altitudes of 1800-3000 m. Flowering: June-July.