Formed by thousands of flowers: Gerizondoa

1997/04/01 Terés, Joxepo Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Botanika

As you will remember, when analyzing the reader, the black hawthorn, we had the opportunity to know the gender and family of the pig. The splendor provided by the bushes and trees it houses in the spring zone is spectacular and it is easy to identify these species.

This beautiful tree, which we will now analyze, can reach 30 meters in height, with a thick trunk and a grayish, almost smooth. Its branches are almost horizontally formed and are numerous, smooth and illegal. The leaves are quite large, obovate elongated, sawn at the edge and somewhat hairy at the bottom, they are deciduous and have a long petiole. The flowers, on the other hand, appear in late winter or early spring; they are found in the 2-6 ginbaile and are white. The fruits, drupe, rounded and usually red, arrive from May to July.

It spans almost all of Europe, West Asia and North Africa. Apparently and according to research, despite thinking that it had its origin in western Asia, in Europe it has also been found in ancient archaeological sites. It inhabits fresh and fat soils, oak and beech forests and mixed deciduous forests. In Euskal Herria and on the Atlantic side it is quite common and gradually decreases until its complete disappearance on the Mediterranean side.

Its fruits, cherries, are highly appreciated and therefore there are many varieties of cultivated cherries. On the other hand, its wood is of fine texture and is appreciated in furniture and lathes. It has also been used as a medicinal herb; on the one hand, cherries are laxative and, on the other, fringes are diuretic.

Cherry tree Family: rosaceae Species: Distribution: Quite common in the Atlantic slope of the Basque Country, except in Bizkaia Habitat: fresh soils and different types of forests Medicinal grass: yes