Bot. Also alatern. [f. L. āla wing + ternus three.] An evergreen shrub (Rhamnus Alaternus) belonging to the genus Rhamnaceæ or Buckthorns.
1607. Topsell, Four-footed Beasts (1673), 189. They love Tamerisk … and a tree called Alaternus, which never beareth fruit but only leaves.
1711. Petiver, in Phil. Trans., XXVII. 393. Great broad Alatern.
1794. Martyn, Rousseau’s Bot., xvi. 207. The Alaternus, formerly so shorn and beclipped in hedges.
