THE IDENTIFICATION OF BERBERIS AQUIFOLIUM 
AND BERBERIS REPENS. 
By CHaRrtes V. PIPER. 
Capt. Meriwether Lewis collected: the type specimens of Berberis 
aquifolium and of Berberis nervosa at the Great Rapids or Cascades 
of the Columbia River, April 11, 1806. From these specimens, at 
least in large part, Pursh described the two species in his Flora 
Americae Septentrionalis,: with colored figures of both. The type 
sheets of both species are now in the possession of the Philadelphia 
Academy of Natural Sciences, having been secured in some un- 
known manner from the Lambert Herbarium, where Pursh’s types 
were deposited. There are no duplicates in the set of Lewis’s plants 
left by Pursh at Philadelphia and now at the Philadelphia Acad- 
emy of Natural Sciences.? In passing it may be stated that these 
two species with others constitute in the opinion of some botanists 
a distinct genus, Mahonia Nutt. or Odostemon Raf., the latter name 
being the older. 
So far as Berberis nervosa is concerned little need be said except 
that the flowers on the type sheet, as also in Pursh’s illustration, are 
those of another species, probably B. aqguifoliwm, which fact ap- 
parently misled De Candolle to redescribe the plant as MJahonia 
glumacea; as first pointed out by Hooker.’ 
Lewis reached the mouth of the Columbia River on November 15, 
1805. Later, at the camp at Fort Clatsop, on Young’s Bay near 
Astoria, he had leisure to describe and figure in his journal the 
common plants of the neighborhood. In his journal® of February 
12, 1806, Lewis describes the two species of Berberis (B. aquifolium 
and B. nervosa) found there as follows: 
“February 12, 1806.—There are two species of evergreen shrubs. Th’s is 
the leaf of one, which I first met with at the grand rapids of the Columbia 
River, and which I have since found in this neighborhood also; they usually 
grow in rich dry ground not far from some watercourse. The roots of both 
species are creeping and celindric, The stem of the first (as above) is from 
174: 219. 1814. 
2 See Meehan, Proc. Acad, Phila., Jan., 1898. 
*>DC, Reg. Veg. Syst. 2: 20. 1821. 
‘FL Bor. Amer. 1: 29. 1829. 
‘'Thwaites, Original journals of the Lewis and Clark expedition 4*: 62-63. 
437 
