520 WOODY PLANTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



FAMILY XXXVIII. THE BARBERRY FAMILY. BERBER1DA"- 



CEJE. R. Brown. 



A family containing eleven or twelve genera of herbs or shrubs 

 of very various appearance and character, frequently thorny, 

 with alternate, petiolate, pinnate or simple leaves, often with 

 spiny or pointed serratures, with yellow, white or red flowers ; 

 mostly natives of mountainous places in the temperate parts of 

 the northern and southern hemispheres, and of the mountains 

 of tropical America. The sepals are deciduous, from 3 or 4 to 

 9, in 1, 2, 3 or 4 series, often colored; the petals as many as the 

 sepals and opposite them, or twice as many, frequently glandu- 

 lar or appendaged at base within ; stamens as many as the petals 

 and opposite them or twice as many, with their anthers opening 

 with recurved valves, that is, each lobe of the anther opening at 

 the edge throughout, except at the upper point, where it remains 

 attached and rises to allow the pollen to escape ; filaments 

 often irritable. The ovary is solitary, 1-celled. Berry or cap- 

 sule 1-celled, 1- or few-seeded. 



The berries of some of the species abound in an agreeable 

 oxalic acid ; the bark of the same is bitter and astringent. Others 

 have purgative properties. 



THE BARBERRY. BERBERIS. L. 



A genus of about forty species of shrubs, belonging to the tem- 

 perate regions of both hemispheres, or to high mountains within 

 the tropics ; either with the primary leaves wanting or changed 

 into single or compound spines in the axil of which the second- 

 ary leaves, formed by the developement of the leaf-buds and 

 simple, are in rosettes or tufts ; or with the primary leaves de- 

 veloped and pinnate ; often with minute stipules ; flowers yellow, 

 with irritable filaments. The sepals are 9, in 3 series, the 3 

 exterior, small, bract-like ; the petals 6, with 2 glands at the 

 base ; stamens 6 ; stigma orbicular, nearly sessile ; fruit a 1- to 

 9-seeded berry with erect seeds. The wood of the root and the 

 inner bark of the stem are of a bright yellow, and abound in 



