Celtis australis L.
Eng.: Honeyberry tree, nettle tree, hackberry. Spa.: Almez, latonero. Fre.: Micocoulier. Ara.: Nechim, nehim, ufrass. Tam.: texzar, tarhzaz, terzaz, tirhzaza, tarhzaza, tughzaz, tudrha, igzis, (the fruit): aqaus, qiqaba, iqiqeb, kerkeb, irkerkob.
Tree, deciduous, with hermaphrodite or male flowers, up to 25 m in height, with sparse foliage and ovate-oblong shape. Trunk can reach 1 m in diameter and even wider. Bark of the stem and main branches white, glaucescent, very characteristic, with a few cracks that are shallow when present. Branches glabrous or glabrescent, young branchlets from brown to greyish and villous. Buds ovoid or ovate-lanceolate, greyish-brown, ± pubescent. Leaves (5-15 × 1.5-6 cm) alternate, ovate-oblong or oblong-lanceolate, longly acuminate, subcordate, twice dentate; matt green, with some applied hairs on the upper side and greenish-whitish and finely villous on the underside, glabrescent when mature; petiolate, with linear-lanceolate stipules, ± villous, promptly caducous. Male flowers grouped in 2-3 at the base of the branchlets of the current year; hermaphrodite flowers solitary on leaf axils; all with long peduncles. Whorl 1, divided into 5 sepaloid parts, ovate-lanceolate, acute, green, ciliate along the margins. Stamens 5, slightly protruding. Fruit a subglobose drupe, 8-12 mm in diameter, first green, then brown-violet or blackish-violet. Seed 1, subglobose, with 4 sides.
Flowering:
March to April.
Fruiting:
October to November.
Habitat:
On very diverse soils, calcareous and siliceous, always more or less deep and moist, usually along rivers and streams. In altitude it reaches 1,600 m. In semiarid to humid bioclimate, on thermomediterranean to mesomediterranean floors.
Distribution:
Mediterranean region. In North Africa it is common in the northern more humid areas of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. In some rivers of the eastern Tellian Atlas it can form almost pure forests. Towards the SW it reaches the High Atlas.
Observations:
Throughout the Sahel appears C. toka (Forssk.) Hepper & J.R.I. Wood (C. integrifolia Lam.), a tree up to 30 m in height, with a wide crown and greyish or greyish-whitish bark. Well differentiated from the Mediterranean species for its adult leaves with an entire margin, and proportionally wider (4-8 × 2.5-4.5 cm), broadly elliptic, asymmetric at the base and longly acuminate apex. Fruit a subglobose drupe, about 10 mm long, yellow-orange. It grows in the more humid areas of the Sahel, therefore being more common in the S and along rivers and other permanent or temporary wetlands.
Conservation status:
Rare but widely distributed species. Currently, it has not been assessed at a global level in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. In Tunisia C. australis is included in its List of native species rare and threatened with extinction (Order of the Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources, 19-July-2006). In Mali, C. integrifolia and all Ulmaceae species are included in its List of species that need authorisation to be used for commercial purposes (Decree 07-155/P-RM 2007).