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In areas that have become overgrown with shrubs or where the grass is no longer mowed, the alder buckthorn has become a great deal more common: in wooded meadows as well as earlier hayfields and at roadsides. Sometimes the outwardly similar and botanically related alder buckthorn and the buckthorn grow near each other, and so the question comes – who is who. The edge of the buckthorn’s leaves is saw-toothed and the twigs end in a thorn. The bark of the alder buckthorn is blackish, with lighter dots, and on scraping the bark on a branch with your nails the yellow coloured wood shows. Although both count as trees we usually have to do with bushes; some large specimens grow up to 7 or 8 metres tall.