Seasonal Wild Flowers

Latin name

Hippophae rhamnoides

Family

Elaeagnaceae

Flowering season

April to June

English distribution

Native Sea-buckthorn is found round the entire coastline.

Non-native forms are scattered inland.

See the BSBI distribution map for Sea-buckthorn

Habitat

It grows on sand dunes, coastal banks and in coastal

hedgerows.

It has been widely planted to stabilize sand dunes,

but it can be invasive and forms impenetrable thickets

which can then be a conservation problem.

Non-native forms are planted in gardens, parks and

amenity areas.

Description

Sea-buckthorn is a native, nitrogen-fixing, rhizomatous,

deciduous, thorny shrub growing up to 3m.

Flowers are inconspicuous, up to 4mm, dioecious and

appear on the previous year's wood.

Male flowers are in short, brown spikes which later fall off.

Individual male flowers comprise 2 sepals and 2 stamens.

Female flowers are wind pollinated, tiny and yellowy-green.

They appear before or just as the leaf shoots begin to

grow.

They have 2 small sepals, a filiform style and a cylindrical

stigma.

Fruits are fleshy, orange berries up to 8mm.

Leaves are deciduous, alternate and up to 8cm. They are

narrowly lanceolate and covered in silvery scales, giving

the plant a distinctive, silver-grey appearance.

Thorns are occasional, woody, stiff, sharp and up to 5cm.

The stems are much branched and woody.

Sea Buckthorn spreads by seed, rhizomes and suckering.

In the summer of 1962 I was on a field course with

Nottingham University Botany Department in Lincolnshire. 

This involved field work at Gibralter Point, south of

Skegness.

My student project was on mapping the invasive spread

of Sea Buckthorn.

We also collected the berries for fermentation in the lab.

Neither the mark for my report nor the Sea Buckthorn

brew was impressive.

We were also told that Sea Buckthorn seeds would only

germinate if they passed through the digestive system of a

hooded crow. I have no idea if this is true.