Berberis canadensis. 



THE CANADIAN BERBERRY. 



Synonymes. 



Berberis canadensis. 



Epine vinette du Canada, 

 Canadischer Berberitzbeerenstrauch, 

 Barberry Bush, 



' De Candolle, Prodromus. 



Don, Miller's Dictionary. 



NuTTiLL, Genera of North American Plants. 



Loudon, Arboretum Britannicum. 

 ^ ToRREY AND Gray, Flora of North America. 



France. 



Germany. 



Anglo- America. 



Engravings. Audubon, Birds of America, pi. clxxxviii. ; Loudon, Arboretum Britannicum, figure 48 ; and the figures below. 



Specific Characters. Spines 3-parted. Leaves obovate-oblong, remotely serrated, upper ones nearly 

 entire. Racemes many-flowered, nodding. Don, Miller's Diet. 



Descriptmi. 



,HE Canadian Berberry is a low shrub, not exceeding five 

 * feet in height, with stems, roots, and flowers yellow, as in 

 the preceding species. The leaves are much smaller and 

 '^^'^ narrower, attenuate at the base, but nearly sessile. The 

 flowers which put forth in May and June, are also smaller than those of the 

 Berberis vulgaris, and the fruit is smaller and shorter, of a red colour, and less 

 sour. It grows on fertile hills, and among rocks, especially in the Alleghany 

 Mountains, and, on the authority of Pursh, it is found in Canada. Torrey and 

 Gray remark that, " This indigenous species, very distinct from the Berberis 

 vulgaris, with which it has been in some degree confounded, is probably a native 

 of the southern states only ; the barberry of the New England states, and, doubt- 

 less, of Canada, being the European species, and certainly not indigenous. Our 

 species was first noticed, apparently, by Marshall, who states that he has a dif- 

 ferent species of barberry growing near New River, Virginia. Original specimens, 

 collected and named by Pursh, exist in the herbarium of the late Professor Bar- 

 ton, now deposited in the rooms of the American Philosophical Society, Phila- 

 delphia." This shrub was cultivated in England in 1759. 



