: BERBERIDACEAE. 57 
BERBERIS. Barberry. 
(Family Berberidaceae). 
Shrubs, mostly with branched 
leaf-spines subtending short spurs 
on which the foliage-leaves are 
fascicled. Wood and pith often 
greenish or bright yellow. Twigs 
mostly sulcate, rather’ slender: 
pith relatively large, round, con- 
tinuous. Buds rather small, soli- 
tary, sessile, ovoid, with about 
half-a-dozen pointed scales and, 
on spurs, the dilated bases of sev- 
eral leaves of the season; alter- 
nate, like the spines. Leaf-scars 
small, at top of the broad persist- 
ent leaf-bases, half-round: bundle- 
traces 3, minute, often indistinct: 
stipule-scars lacking. 
The barberries, long represent- 
ed in gardens by the single Euro- 
pean species Berberis vulgaris, 
have come into popularity of re- 
cent years through the introduction of numerous Asiatic spe- 
cies of which the compact-growing B. Thunbergii is now al- 
most universally planted for low hedges and masses. Fortu- 
nately, this species does not serve as an alternate host for 
the black- or stem-rust of wheat, as B. vulgaris does, so that 
in the prevalent crusade against the latter it may be spared 
safely; and it may be added that the common barberry pos- 
sesses no properties which particularly justify its retention as 
a cultivated plant. 
It is to be noted that the evergreen Mahonias, sometimes 
referred to the genus Berberis, share with the common bar- 
berry susceptibility to the black-rust (Puccinia graminis). 
