462 BERBERIS. 1.CLASS VI. order I. 



Habitat. — Copses, woods, and hedges; not uncommon in England 

 and Scotland ; Ballyarthur, near Fermoy, Ireland. — Mr. J. Drummond. 

 Shrub ; flowering in June. 



The Barberry, well known as an ornamental shrub in our hedges 

 and shrubberies, is found wild in all parts of Europe. Sometimes by 

 cultivation, as well as in the wild state, (especially in Italy), it attains 

 the port and appearance of a tree, growing to the size of the com- 

 mon plum. Numerous varieties of it are enumerated, but these 

 are chiefly in the colour of the fruit, as the lutea^ yellow fruited; 

 violacea, violet fruited; -purpurea^ purple fruited; nigra^ the black 

 fruited ; alha^ the white fruited ; asperma, fruit without seeds. 



The bark and wood is of a yellow colour, said to be used by dyers 

 in producing a beautiful yellow tint, and the bark especially abounds 

 in an astringent principle, on which account it is used in Poland for 

 the purposes of tanning leather. The fruit contains a considerable 

 quantity of acid, which is the oxalic, rendering it so sour, that few 

 or no birds will eat it from choice. Boiled with sugar it forms 

 an excellent dessert preserve or jelly, and pickled with vinegar is 

 used for garnishing dishes, &c. ; bruised, and boiling water poured 

 upon it, makes a pleasant drink useful in fevers; but the use of 

 the fruit, as well as the bark, in the cure of many diseases, is not now 

 so highly esteemed as formerly. 



The Barberry is remarkable from the circumstance of the curious 

 elasticity of the filaments, which, upon the slightest irritation, suddenly 

 contract and throw the pollen from the anthers upon the stigmas, and 

 in a short time they recover their former elasticity, and are again 

 sensible to the application of any irritating cause ; and this curious 

 example of irritability may be repeated several times in the same 

 flower, so that insects attracted either by the odour of the flowers, or 

 the glowing colour of the glands at the base of the filaments, are the 

 unconscious cause of an occurrence in the wise ordination of which 

 barrenness seems almost impossible. 



The spines of the Barberry are also remarkable examples of the con- 

 version of leaflets into prickles by the absorbtion of the parenchyma of 

 the leaf and the induration of the mid-ril)S. 



A belief has prevailed that the Barberry is productive of barrenness 

 in all plants growing near it, or even within three or four hundred 

 yards of its place of growth, and on this account it is in many places 

 objected to in hedge rows, &c. We have not ourselves observed any 

 such property in this plant, and it would indeed be an extraordinary 

 thing if, that while there is such a wonderful provision to procure 

 fecundity in the plant itself, it should have the power of depriving 

 it in others. We have, however, reason to believe that the prejudice 

 against this shrub is now much diminished ; and it is not impro- 

 bable, as observed in Vol. v. Pari 2 of Rnglish Flora, p. 372, that it is 

 from the Barberry bushes being frequently infested with a minute 



