Yellow and Orange 



5 to 8 ft. tall, armed with sharp spines. Leaves: From the 3- 



pronged spines (thorns) ; oval or obovate, bristly edged. 



Fniit: Oblong, scarlet, acid berries. 

 Preferred Habitat — Thickets; roadsides; dry or gravelly soil. 

 Flowcriui^ Season — May — ^J une. 

 Distribution — Naturalized in New England and Middle States ; less 



common in Canada and the West. Europe and Asia. 



When the twigs of barberry bushes arch with the weight of 

 clusters of beautiful bright berries in September, every one must 

 take notice of a shrub so decorative, which receives scant atten- 

 tion from us, however, when its insignificant little flowers are 

 out. Yet these blossoms, small as they are, are up to a mar- 

 vellous trick, quite as remarkable as the laurel's (p. I2=>) or the 

 calopogon's (p. 86), to compel insects to do their bidding. Three 

 of the six sepals, by their size and color, attend to the advertising, 

 playing the part of a corolla; and partly by curving inward at the 

 tip, partly by the drooping posture of the flower, help protect 

 the stamens, pistil, and nectar glands within from rain. Did the 

 flowers hang vertically, not obliquely, such curvature of the tips 

 of sepals and petals would be unnecessary. Six stamens surround 

 a pistil, but each of their six anthers, which are in reality little 

 pollen boxes opening by trap-doors on either side, is tucked under 

 the curving tip of a petal at whose base lie two orange-colored 

 nectar glands. A small bee or fly enters the flower : what hap- 

 pens.? To reach the nectar, he must probe between the bases of 

 two exceedingly irritable stamens. The merest touch of a visitor's 

 tongue against them releases two anthers, just as the nibbling 

 mouse all unsuspectingly releases the wire from the hook of the 

 wooden trap he is caught in. As the two stamens spring up- 

 ward on being released, pollen instantly flies out of the trap-doors 

 of the anther boxes on the bee, which suffers no greater penalty 

 than being obliged to carry it to the stigma of another flower. So 

 short are the stamens, it is improbable that a flower's pollen ever 

 reaches its own stigma except through the occasional confused 

 fumbling of a visitor. Usually he is so startled by the sudden 

 shower of pollen that he flies away instantly. 



In the barberry bushes, as in the gorse, when grown in dry, 

 gravelly situations, we see many leaves and twigs modified into 

 thorns to diminish the loss of water through evaporation by 

 exposing too much leaf surface to the sun and air. That such 

 spines protect the plants which bear them from the ravages of 

 grazing cattle is, of course, an additional motive for their presence. 

 Under cultivation, in well-watered garden soil — and how many 

 charming varieties of barberries are cultivated — the thorny shrub 

 loses much of its armor, putting forth many more leaves, in 

 rosettes, along more numerous twigs, instead. Even the prickly- 

 pear cactus might become mild as a lamb were it to forswear 



296 



