548 BERBERIDACEAE 



and 9 to 13 stamens. Genera 8 and species about 140, mostly north temperate 

 zone, only Berberis reaching into the southern hemisphere. 



Bibliog. Lindley, J., Evergreen Barberries cult, in Great Britain (Jour. Lond. Hort. Soc. 

 5:1-21, 1850). Fedde, F., Versuch einer Monographie der Gatt. Mahonia (Engler, Jahrb. 

 31:30-133, figs. 1-5, 1901). 



Shrubs or low woody plants; leaves pinnate, prickly; petals bifid 1. BERBERIS. 



Perennial herbs; leaves all basal, ternate, not prickly. 



Calyx and corolla none; leaves with 3 sessile leaflets 2. ACHLYS. 



Calyx and corolla present, reflexed; petals entire; petioles once or twice ternately divided, 

 the divisions bearing 3 (rarely 1) petiolulate leaflets 3. VANCOUVERIA. 



1. BERBERIS L. BARBERRY. 



Evergreen shrubs or low suffrutescent plants with yellow wood. Leaves 

 alternate, prickly, in ours pinnately compound with the rachis jointed at the 

 insertion of the leaflets. Flowers yellow, in racemes. Sepals petal-like. Petals 

 concave, in ours distinctly bifid. Filaments irritable. Stigma peltate-umbilicate. 

 Fruit a berry. Species about 110, all continents except Australia. (Arabic 

 name.) 



Filaments with a pair of recurved teeth near the apex; racemes short, from small terminal or 

 lateral buds; bud-scales few, deciduous, small (1 to 2 lines long); leaflets 3 to 9, pin- 

 nately veined. 

 Leaflets with comparatively few (mostly 5 to 15) teeth, the teeth strongly spinose; erect 



shrubs of dry inner ridges or of the desert. 

 Racemes loosely few-flowered. 



Leaflets equal or nearly so ; tooth-like lobes of the leaflets coarse, mostly subequal 



1. B. fremontii. 



Terminal leaflet much longer than the lateral ones ; terminal lanceolate tooth of each 

 leaflet often entire, many times larger than the small lateral teeth 2. B. nevinii. 



Racemes densely many-flowered; teeth of the leaflets very coarse 3. B. calif ornicum. 



Leaflets with more numerous teeth. 



Foliage not very dense; leaflets with many teeth. 

 Low (about % to 1 foot high). 



Stems erect or ascending; leaflets mostly pale or glaucescent above, mostly 



glaucous or whitish beneath, their teeth spine-tipped 4. B. pumila. 



Stems prostrate or ascending; leaflets dull, their teeth bristle-tipped.. 5. B. repens. 



Erect, 1 to 3 feet high ; leaflets shining above, their teeth spine-tipped 



6. B. aquifolium. 

 Foliage mostly forming a dense terminal fascicle; leaflets thin, with numerous small 



bristle-tipped teeth; coast region 7. B. pinnata. 



Filaments without teeth; racemes elongated, loose, solitary or few from a terminal bud; bud- 

 scales large (% to 1% inches long), persistent; leaflets 11 to 21, somewhat palmately 

 veined 8. B. nervosa. 



1. B. fremontii Torr. DESERT BARBERRY. Shrub 5 to 8 (or 15) feet high; 

 leaflets 5, ovate, rigidly coriaceous, yellowish or glaucous, scarcely at all or only 

 moderately undulate, 6 to 12 lines long, strongly and sinuately 5 or 7-lobed, the 

 lobes strongly spinose ; petiole articulated near the base or often a supplementary 

 pair of leaflets borne at this point; racemes few (3 to 9) -flowered, 1 to 1*4 inches 

 long, the peduncles as long' or almost none ; berries at maturity dull brown, some- 

 what inflated, 5 to 6 lines in diameter. 



Mountain slopes : eastern Mohave Desert ; Colorado De.sert. East into Arizona 

 and southern Nevada, south into Lower California and Sonora. May-June. 



Locs. New York Mts., Jepson 5438; Jacumba, Abrams 3693. 



Refs. BERBERIS FREMONTII Torr. Bot. Mex. Bound. 30 (1859), type loc. Virgen River, s. 

 Utah, Fremont. Mahonia fremontii Fedde in Engler Jahrb. 31:98 (1901). Odostemon fre- 

 montii Rydb. Bull. Torr. Club 33:141 (1906). 



2. B. nevinii Gray. Shrub 6 to 8 feet high, with many erect loose branches ; 

 leaflets 5, y 2 to 1^4 inches long, the lateral oblong, the terminal one broadly 

 lanceolate, acuminate, all with few and small spinose teeth ; petioles almost 

 none ; racemes loosely 5 to 7-flowered. 



Sandy slopes, eastern edge of San Fernando Valley; very closely allied to 



B. fremontii. 



Refs. BERBERIS NEVINII Gray, Syn. Fl. I 1 : 69 (1895), type loc. San Fernando Valley, 

 Nevin. Mahonia nevinii Fedde in Engler Jahrb. 31:102 (1901). Odostemon nevinii Abrams, 

 Bull. N. Y. Bot. Gard. 6:359 (1910). 



