Arboç (Catalan) | Albedro, érbedo (Galician) | Madronheiro, ervedeiro (Portuguese) | Madroño (Spanish) | Arbousier (French)
The strawberry tree is a shrub or small tree that can reach a height of 8 m if left to grow. It has a dense and globular crown that creates a lot of shade.
The bark is reddish-brown, cracked and scaly, detaching in scales, the young branches reddish, turning a greyish tone as they mature.
The leaves are persistent, simple, alternate, lanceolate, of an intense green colour, glossy on the upper side and matte underneath, 8-10 cm long and 3-4 cm wide with a serrated edge.
The flowers appear in white or pinkish-clear hanging clusters, shaped as small closed bells, arriving in late autumn or early winter, an excellent plant as bee flora.
On ripening, the fruit are grainy, skinless, fleshy, rounded, 2-3 cm long, red or bright orange in colour. Therefore, in winter the strawberry tree can be seen with its flowers and ripe fruit simultaneously.
The leaves and bark, due to their high content in tannins, have been used as a tanning agent; its roots, for tanning red and used in medicine for treating diarrhoea (astringent), to facilitate urinary transit (diuretic) and to cleanse (disinfectant) the urinary tracts.
Its fruit can be eaten on its own or used to make compote, vinegars, and brandies. In some areas of the Mediterranean (like Algeria and Corsica), the fermented fruit is used to prepare a wine that, once distilled, is used to prepare brandy. In Portugal, it is popular to prepare a home-made brew made from arbutus brandy.
Its natural habitat are mixed forests in ravines and river gorges, and on slopes in Holm oak or oak groves, from sea level to between 800-1200 m altitude.
Arbutus is the name given by the Romans for the strawberry tree and its fruit; unedo comes from edo, which means to eat, and unus or one, meaning, ‘to eat only one’, alluding to the prospect of getting drunk from its fruit if they are misused, given that when they ripen they ferment and contain a certain amount of alcohol.
In Basque, we have a great variety of names: gurbitsa, gurbisa, gurbixa, gurbiskia, gurguskia, gurbitxa, gurpitza, kurpitsa, kurpitia, kurpitza, gurbiza, gurguxia, gurguxa, kurkusa, kurkutsa, kulubiza, burbutxa, burbuza, burbiza, burgiza, burguxa, kaudana, kandana, aniamania, animania, gurbistondo.
