Alder

Family Betulaceae. Name: from the Celtic words 'al' - near, 'lan' - shore, which indicates the characteristic habitats of the genus' representatives.

Description: includes up to 30 species occurring in the Northern Hemisphere.

These are deciduous trees and shrubs with alternate, simple, entire, rounded-elongate, toothed or toothed-lobed leaves. Male and female flowers develop on the same shoot. Male inflorescences are catkins, female ones are in the form of spikes and are situated in the upper part of the crown. Fruits are single-seeded, flattened small nuts edged by a narrow wing, located in small, woody cones, into which the female inflorescences transform.

Predominantly moisture-loving plants, but not particularly long-lived. Alders are considered soil-improving species. They are of interest for landscape and park construction as riparian plants, for lining the banks of large bodies of water, both singly and in groups in valley and landscape parks with fairly fresh and moist from nearby groundwater soils. Rapid growth and the long retention of green foliage into autumn are valuable traits of these plants from the perspective of green construction. Mole crickets greatly dislike alder, and alder branches are pushed into the ground where this pest has been observed. The presence of wild-growing alder indicates the presence of groundwater.